Ruling May Affect S. Dakota Abortion Vote

In a ruling that CBS News legal analyst Andrew Cohen says could influence South Dakota's vote next Tuesday on whether to ban nearly all abortions, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has struck down the existing notification and consent component of the state's abortion statute.

South Dakota can no longer enforce a 2005 law that would require doctors to give additional warnings to women who seek abortions.

In a 2-1 ruling, the panel of judges upheld a lower court's ruling that has prevented the state from enforcing the law. Planned Parenthood, which challenged the measure, has demonstrated a likelihood it will win in its argument that the law violates the U.S. Constitution, the panel said.

The law, passed by state lawmakers in 2005, would require doctors to tell women that abortions end human lives and may later cause serious psychological problems for women who have abortions.

A woman also would have to be told she has a legal relationship with her unborn child and that the relationship would be terminated by an abortion that would end the child's life.

Supporters of the push to prohibit abortion in South Dakota may cite this ruling as proof that the courts are hostile to existing laws, Cohen explains, and that abortion laws need to be changed from the top down.

U.S. District Judge Karen Schreier of Rapid City issued an order preventing the state from enforcing the law while the lawsuit proceeds. The judge said Planned Parenthood has a fair chance of succeeding on its claim that the law violates the free-speech rights of doctors.

The state argues that the required information is medically accurate and supported by science. State lawyers contend the law would not curb reasonable access to abortion in South Dakota.

The South Dakota Legislature this year passed a much more restrictive law, which would ban nearly all abortions in the state. South Dakota voters will decide the fate of the abortion ban in the
Nov. 7 election.