Indiana’s former governor, Mike Pence, left women a gift before he headed to Washington as Hair Fuhrer’s insurance against impeachment. A federal court has returned that gift with a big, “Nope.”
A federal judge permanently struck down provisions of an Indiana law passed last year that would have banned abortions sought due to fetal genetic abnormalities and required that aborted fetuses be buried or cremated.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Walton Pratt's decision, issued Friday, found that those two provisions and a third one are unconstitutional. She granted an order permanently blocking all three from being enforced and granted summary judgment in favor of Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky, which had sued the state in April 2016 after then-Gov. Mike Pence signed the provisions into law.
The three restrictions violate women's due process rights under the Constitution and conflict with rulings by numerous courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, upholding a woman's right to seek an abortion before a fetus could viably survive outside the womb, Pratt wrote in her ruling.
… Indiana is now permanently barred from enforcing a restriction that would have banned abortions sought because of a fetus' genetic abnormalities, race, gender or ancestry. Pratt's order also permanently blocks a requirement that abortion providers tell women that Indiana prohibits such abortions, and another provision that would have required that aborted fetuses be buried or cremated.
Note the “race, gender, or ancestry.” That entire part of Pence’s law was created as a new talking point, a fancy new crowbar to try to pry open a crack in Roe v. Wade. Imagine having to prove that your desire to have an abortion is not for any of those reasons. How could you even do that? Pence’s idea of America would include imaginary “thought crimes.”
Meanwhile, Indiana’s Attorney General knows that there are still taxpayer dollars at his disposal so, of course, he’ll appeal the ruling.
Attorney General Curtis Hill said Monday in a statement that he's disappointed by Friday's ruling and plans to appeal to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago.