Planned Parenthood calls to repeal admitting privileges law

IN has several laws pro-choice advocates have tagged as burdensome to both clinics and abortion seekers, such as requirements that clinics be a certain distance from and have admitting privileges to hospitals, as well as a law that forces women to receive an ultrasound before having an abortion. The law took effect July 1; the state’s law previously required an ultrasound at the time of the abortion.

ACLU of IN legal director, Ken Falk, says the new requirement “provides no health benefit to women and serves only to place a substantial obstacle to obtaining an abortion”.

The 18-hour ultrasound requirement is one provision of a wide-ranging abortion restrictions measure Republican Gov. Mike Pence signed into law in March.

The second, in an in federal court, stopped a state law that would have banned abortions based on a fetus’s disability or race and required aborted fetuses to be cremated or buried.

The federal lawsuit was filed Thursday on behalf of Planned Parenthood of IN and Kentucky.

Pro-choice advocates in IN celebrated two recent court decisions blocking certain laws limiting abortion access.

IN law already required women to have an ultrasound before they have an abortion. That law would have prohibited abortions because of genetic abnormality, race, sex or ancestry, and would mandate disposal of an aborted fetus only through burial or cremation.

Cockrum says IN still has many laws she calls restrictive.

He also said Planned Parenthood’s clinics are already seeing “backups and problems” as women seek ultrasounds a day or more in advance of their planned abortions. Anti-abortion group Indiana Right to Life has reportedly asked the state to appeal Pratt’s decision while the state attorney’s general would be reviewing the court’s ruling.

The case in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana is Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky. v. Commissioner, Indiana State Department of Health; Prosecutors of Marion, Lake, Monroe and Tippecanoe Counties, 1:16-cv-1807.

The nonprofit Guttmacher Institute, which supports legal access to abortion, says Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Dakota have the nation’s most sweeping abortion limits.

“Ultrasounds are an essential part of our medical practice”, said Betty Cockrum, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of IN and Kentucky, IN the statement.