Fifth Circuit Upholds Required Ultrasound Display Before Abortion

Earlier this week, a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals upheld a Texas law which requires that an abortionist display an ultrasound image of a mother’s unborn child before she has an abortion. This decision is being hailed by Wisconsin Right to Life, National Right to Life, and our colleagues at Texas Right to Life as a giant step in ensuring that a mother has full information about her unborn child before making a decision to kill her child.

The Texas law also requires that the abortionist allow the mother to hear her baby’s heartbeat and provide information about the development of the unborn child. According to Attorney Mary Spaulding Balch of National Right to Life, ‘This breakthrough decision from the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recognizes, in the words of the Court, ‘the physicians obligations to display the sonogram images’ of the unborn child before an abortion. In practice, an ultrasound law that does not require the ultrasound to be displayed can become almost meaningless because virtually every abortion facility will slip a waiver form into the stack of papers mothers are asked to sign.” Laws similar to the Texas law passed in North Carolina and Oklahoma are also being challenged in court.

Pro-abortion groups argued in court that requiring abortionists to display ultrasounds and heart beats violates their free speech rights by “compelling speech.” This argument was rejected by the court which noted the plurality opinion by the Eighth Circuit in the 1992 Planned Parenthood of Southeast Pennsylvania v. Casey decision which concluded that “the giving of truthful, nonmisleading information ‘which is relevant…to the decision’ did not impose an undue burden on the woman’s right to an abortion.'”

The pro-abortion spin is that ultrasound laws are “cruel.” Why is it “cruel” to give women complete information about the child she is about to destroy? But then, pro-abortion groups always object to any requirements or restrictions on abortion and have never met an abortion they would stop.

Barbara Lyons