North Carolina AG will ask high court to hear ultrasound case

A federal appeals court gave the pro-abortion movement an early gift just before Christmas, striking down a North Carolina law requiring abortionists to show their patients ultrasound images of the babies they are about to kill.

Last week, a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court’s decision to block the law, known as the North Carolina Woman’s Right to Know Act. The appeals court ruled the law violates free speech rights because it requires doctors not only to show abortion-minded women their ultrasounds but also describe the image to them.

“The state freely admits that the purpose and anticipated effect … is to convince women seeking abortions to change their minds or reassess their decisions,” the 37-page ruling said. “The state cannot commandeer the doctor-patient relationship to compel a physician to express its preference to the patient.”

The law also requires abortionists to offer women the opportunity to hear their babies’ heartbeat.

Three other states—Louisiana, Texas, and Wisconsin—also require abortionists to describe the ultrasound image to women. Twenty-one states require abortionists to offer or provide women the opportunity to view their ultrasounds. Courts upheld Texas’ ultrasound law, but struck down the law in Oklahoma.

Pro-abortion groups like the American Civil Liberties Union, Center for Reproductive Rights, and Planned Parenthood Federation of America originally challenged the North Carolina law in 2011. Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards hailed the court’s decision last week as a “major victory for women.”

But women deserve complete information about their pregnancies, said North Carolina Right to Life President Barbara Holt. She hopes the U.S. Supreme Court will eventually hear an appeal.

“It is absolutely vital that a woman, at this most crucial life-and-death juncture, be provided all the information possible about the abortion procedure and the development of her unborn child,” she told National Right to Life News Today. “Simply put, the abortion decision cannot be undone. Women deserve all the facts.”

North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper plans to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court based on other, conflicting court decisions. “Monday’s opinion holding North Carolina’s law unconstitutional is now in conflict with … a case involving a similar Texas law which the 5th Circuit Court upheld,” Cooper's spokeswoman, Noelle Talley, told the Charlotte Observer.

When performing other risky surgeries, doctors provide complete information about the procedure. Abortionists shouldn’t be exempted from this standard, said Casy Mattox, senior counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom. “Because this law places the best interests of women and their children first, we hope that it will ultimately be upheld,” he said.