‘DEEPLY UNETHICAL’

Supreme Court Rejects Challenge to Kentucky Abortion Ultrasound Law

The law mandates doctors to provide detailed descriptions of a fetus to a woman before she has an abortion, even if she objects.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal by Kentucky’s only abortion clinic regarding a law that mandates doctors who perform abortions to confront a woman—even if she objects—with detailed descriptions of her fetus along with ultrasound pictures.

The appeal stated that the law violates the right to free speech and disturbs the patient by requiring doctors to perform invasive ultrasound procedures during an already-vulnerable time. Kentucky officials, meanwhile, argued to the Supreme Court that the rule provides women “information that is truthful, non-misleading, and relevant to their decision of whether to have an abortion.”

American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Alexa Kolbi-Molinas, who represented the clinic, said in a statement that the high court’s decision “rubber-stamped extreme political interference in the doctor-patient relationship,” adding, “the law is not only unconstitutional, but as leading medical experts and ethicists explained, deeply unethical.” The informed consent requirement was ruled as part of the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey case, which upheld the constitutional right to have an abortion with the condition of state regulation.