A Major Setback for Planned Parenthood and a Victory for an Alliance

• By Alan Sears
• Posted Aug 30, 2011
• No Comments »

In Arizona, Planned Parenthood is on the run.

On August 11, the Arizona Court of Appeals ruled 3-0 that the state’s Abortion Consent Act – which prohibits anyone who’s not a doctor from performing abortions, protects health care workers who for reasons of conscience object to helping with abortions, and requires notarized parental consent for minors seeking abortions – is constitutional.

The court also lifted a judge’s order (issued in response to a Planned Parenthood lawsuit) that had kept the Act from being enacted ever since its passage in 2009 by the Arizona legislature. ADF had joined the Center for Arizona Policy, the Bioethics Defense Fund, and the Life Legal Defense Foundation in appealing that order on behalf of numerous pro-life organizations, including the Arizona Catholic Conference, American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Catholic Medical Association and the Christian Medical and Dental Associations.  The order had also prevented patients at Planned Parenthood clinics from receiving information personally from the abortionist on abortion alternatives, long-term medical risks, and the probable gestational age of the preborn child being aborted.

“If Planned Parenthood truly cared about what’s best for women, they wouldn’t be repeatedly going to court around the nation to stop laws that allow women to make fully informed choices,” says ADF Senior Counsel Steven H. Aden, who argued the case before the Court of Appeals on June 14. “The court ruled rightly in this case in rejecting the arguments of the nation’s largest purveyor of abortion. The protection of women is not unconstitutional.”

“We hold that the statutes at issue would withstand federal constitutional scrutiny,” the Court of Appeals wrote in its opinion, adding “that the statutes affected by the preliminary injunction are constitutional, and we therefore vacate the injunction in its entirety.”

“Everyone deserves full and accurate information before undergoing any medical procedure,” said Center for Arizona Policy Legal Counsel Deborah Sheasby, co-counsel in the lawsuit and one of more than 2,000 attorneys in the ADF alliance. “These types of protections have been repeatedly upheld and are overwhelmingly supported by the public.”

As a result of the appellate court’s decision, Planned Parenthood announced that it would no longer offer abortion services at seven of its Arizona clinics.

“Planned Parenthood has chosen to end their services rather than raise that standard of care to the same level as other medical care in the state,” says Cathi Herrod, president of the Center for Arizona Policy, a member of the ADF alliance which helped author the 2009 law.

Join us in giving thanks for this extraordinary victory – a victory made possible by dedicated allies like the Center for Arizona Policy and the Arizona Catholic Conference working together to get the act signed into law. Please give thanks as well for the dedicated team of attorneys who defended the law against this challenge by Planned Parenthood, so that women and children’s health could be protected.  And: please join us in praying for the day when all Planned Parenthood abortion clinics and other abortion centers across the country will close their doors.