ACLU sues to block informed-consent law
The state requires that women be informed of abortion risks, alternatives
From, The Kentucky Citizen Digest, January/February, 2001.

Supporters of an informed-consent law are   concerned about the possible withholding of critical information from women considering abortions in Kentucky.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky (ACLU) filed suit against the state last year in an attempt to block the enforcement of informed consent.

The law requires that doctors make women aware of important factors regarding abortions that would enable them to make an educated decision as to whether to choose an alternative.

Also according to the law, women must receive the information to review at least 24 hours before the abortion procedure.

The legislation was passed during the 1998 General Assembly and sponsored by Sen. Katie Stine, R-Fort Thomas (a state representative at the time).

The information includes the father’s legal responsibilities regarding child support, the probable gestational age of the embryo or fetus, and the risks associated with an abortion.

According to the law, abortion providers are also required to give information dealing with abortion alternatives, such as the medical assistance available for childbirth, prenatal care and postnatal care that is available and the names of adoption agencies and publicly funded agencies that assist with pregnancy and childbirth.

Stine says the law is “pro-women” and that it gives women the chance to know all the facts and review their options in order to make an informed decision, combatting what she calls a “conveyor belt-type environment” in abortion clinics that, in effect, encourages women to have abortions.

Opponents of the legislation say the law places an undo burden on women who live an inconvenient distance from Lexington or Louisville, the two cities in the state with abortion facilities, by not allowing them to seek and obtain an abortion in the same day.

However, Dr. John Gianopoulos, who testified for the state, asserted that in any case of elective surgery, a face-to-face meeting between doctor and patient is medically necessary in order to discuss the procedure.

Gianopoulos is chairman of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at the Loyola University School of Medicine in Chicago.

This initial meeting would also allow physicians to conduct an initial physical examination in order to assess the woman’s health and the age of the embryo or fetus.  Margie Montgomery, director of  Louisville-based Kentucky Right to Life, agrees with Stine that there is a “conveyor belt-type mentality” at abortion clinics.

“Those who run abortion mills are interested in the financial gain they make. From our experience and from what women have told us who have been there, there is a mentality of being more interested in the money, rather than the crisis the woman is in,” Montgomery states.

Montgomery says the state did an excellent job presenting its case and its position that women have the right to make an informed decision when considering abortion.

U.S. District Judge John G. Heyburn II, viewed as pro-choice, is deciding the case without a jury. His ruling is expected this summer.

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld a similar informed consent law in Pennsylvania in 1992.

Last November, however, Heyburn struck down the partial-birth abortion ban that was passed in the same 1998 session. That case is now before the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Though Montgomery does not expect a decision to be made for several months, she is optimistic, saying that the state made an excellent and convincing presentation of its case.
 
 

Key Family Foundation Contacts: Kent Ostrander, Executive Director Martin Cothran, Senior Associate Policy Analyst