On 9 December 2019, theUS Supreme Court left in placea Kentucky restriction requiring doctors to show and describe ultrasound imagesto women seeking an abortion, even if the patient objects and shows signs ofdistress, turning away a challenge arguing that the measure violates the freespeech rights of physicians. The justices declined without comment to hear anappeal by the American Civil Liberties Union of a lower court ruling that upheld the law after a federal judgepreviously had struck it down as a violation of the US Constitution’s FirstAmendment guarantee of free speech.
SOURCE: Al Jazeera, 9 December 2019 ; PHOTO: by ChrisKenning/Reuters. Escorts who ensure women can reach the clinic line up as theyface off protesters outside the EMW Women’s Surgical Center, Louisville,Kentucky
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The law and ethics offetal burial requirements for reproductive health care
JAMA, by Dov Fox, IGlenn Cohen, Eli Y Adashi, Journal of the American Medical Association, 8October 2019;322(14):1347-48 (Not open access)
Abstract
ThisViewpoint discusses the 2019Box v Planned ParenthoodUS Supreme Courtruling that upheld an Indiana provision mandating that abortion facilities buryor cremate fetal remains, characterizing the law as a “targeted restriction”law intended to place undue burden on abortion providers and patients andincrementally reduce access to abortion and related reproductive healthservices.
Excerpts
On May 28, 2019,the Supreme Court of the United States decided the constitutionality of afar-reaching new abortion law. The 7 to 2 ruling in Box v Planned Parenthoodupheld an Indiana provision that mandates any clinician or facilityproviding abortion to bury or cremate fetal remains, no different from therequirements for cadavers. The Court declined to review a separate provisionthat bars any abortion that is sought on the basis of sex, race, or geneticdisability. This Viewpoint examines the practical implications of the Court’sdecision for physicians and their patients…
Indiana is one of eightstates that has passed laws requiring that fetal remains be interred orcremated, rather than disposed of as medical material under the rules set forthby the state’s environment and health departments. That mandate is an exampleof what abortion rights advocates call a targeted restriction on abortionproviders (TRAP law). These are laws that appear to impose neutral requirementson medical professionals who perform abortion…
Proponents of thelaw argued that it expresses respect for unborn life by mandating dignifiedfuneral rites for fetal remains. Opponents countered that the requirementunduly burdens women seeking abortion, not least by making it much costlier forfacilities to perform the procedure – prohibitively more expensive for thoseclinics that have already been forced to shut down because of the additionalexpenses and administrative burdens that the law imposes. Independent economistsestimate that fetal cremations cost approximately $500 each and more than twicethat amount per burial…
Beyond the burdensthat fetal disposition laws place on clinicians and women seeking abortion,these laws bear clinical and cultural consequences by implying that abortedfetuses should be treated no differently than born persons who are buried orcremated after they die…
In defending theIndiana provision, lawmakers argued that the moral mandate “expands onlong-established legal and cultural traditions of recognizing the dignity andhumanity of the fetus.” For most women, the decision to have an abortion is adeeply personal and difficult one. Laws like Indiana’s are not just about thestatus of unborn life and whether medical clinics, individual physicians, andfemale patients are forced to treat fetal remains more like children who havedied than as medical tissue. The Supreme Court’s decision in Box v PlannedParenthood is really about the future of abortion access. Will it remainwhat Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg affirmed as a “constitutionally protectedright,” or will it be demoted to what Justice Clarence Thomas called a “supposed”right that will be no longer?…