U.S. appeals court blocks Indiana 'selective' abortion law

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

POLITICS APRIL 19, 2018 / 8:37 PM / UPDATED 5 HOURS AGO

U.S. appeals court blocks Indiana 'selective' abortion law

Jonathan Stempel
3 MIN READ

(Reuters) - A federal appeals court on Thursday declared unconstitutional an Indiana law signed by then-Governor Mike Pence that banned women from having abortions because of the gender, race or disability, including Down’s syndrome, of their fetuses.

The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago said the 2016 ban on “selective” abortions imposed an “undue burden” on the ability to have the procedure.

It rejected Indiana’s suggestion that women’s privacy rights covered only the “binary choice” of whether or not to have a child, not whether to terminate particular pregnancies, including for genetic disabilities.

“The Supreme Court has been clear: the State may inform a woman’s decision before viability, but it cannot prohibit it,” Circuit Judge William Bauer wrote for a 3-0 panel of Republican-appointed judges.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-abortion-indiana/u-s-appeals-court-blocks-indiana-selective-abortion-law-idUSKBN1HR01R

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. Good. Abortion, any abortion, let alone

those covered under this stupid law, are and need to be ONLY the concern of the woman involved. And perhaps her doctor. Maybe her partner. But NO ONE ELSE should be involved. These are highly personal decisions and need to remain so.

Personal note. I became pregnant with my second child when I was 38 years old, at an elevated risk for Down Syndrome. I chose not to have testing, to the clear dismay of my ob and to a lesser dismay of my husband. I honestly felt that having a child with DS was not the end of the world and we'd deal with it if it happened. In the end my son was born with zero genetic defects. That said, I would not begin to judge another woman in similar circumstances who underwent testing and perhaps had an abortion. Someone else is going to make different decisions in similar circumstances. Who am I, who is anyone else, ever to judge that??