The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals recently struck down a law regulating abortions signed into law in March of 2016 by then Indiana Governor Mike Pence.
Called the “Sex Selective and Disability Abortion Ban”, the law imposed restrictions on a woman’s ability to have an abortion based on her reasons for seeking the abortion. The law prohibited a person from performing an abortion if the person knows the woman is seeking an abortion solely for one of the enumerated reasons related to the disposition of the fetus, and required those performing abortions to inform women of the provisions. The prohibited reasons included seeking an abortion based on the sex of the fetus, whether the fetus had been diagnose with a disability, or its race, color, national origin or ancestry.
Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky filed suit to declare the law unconstitutional, and enjoin the state from enforcing the law. The district court entered a preliminary injunction and later granted Planned Parenthood summary judgment. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, ruling the law unconstitutional, violating well-established Supreme Court precedent holding that a woman may terminate her pregnancy prior to viability and that the State may not prohibit a woman for exercising that right for any reason.
Additional Reading:
Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky, Inc. v. Commissioner of the Indiana State Department of Health, No. 17-3163 (7th Cir. 2018)
Appeals court: Indiana abortion law signed by Mike Pence unconstitutional
Indiana abortion law signed by former Gov. Mike Pence is ruled unconstitutional
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