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Today, the Center for Reproductive Rights filed a lawsuit on behalf of several Louisiana abortion businesses and abortionists seeking to challenge all of the new pro-life legislation passed by Louisiana's Legislature in the 2016 Regular Session.
Among those pieces of legislation being challenged are common sense restrictions such as:
- Prohibiting Dismemberment Abortion, in which an abortionist uses forceps to grasp body parts of the unborn child and dismember it piece by piece while it is still alive.
- Requiring abortionists to be Board Certified in OBGYN or Family Medicine, or to be under the direct supervision of a provider who is Board Certified in OBGYN or Family Medicine.
- Giving women a 72-hour reflection period prior to abortion in order to have adequate time to consider all their options, as well as to allow women who are being coerced or trafficked time to seek help to protect themselves and their unborn children.
- Prohibiting abortion businesses from profiting from the sale of body parts gathered from aborted babies and requiring instead that the abortion businesses bury or cremate aborted children.
- Protections for unborn children over 20 weeks who are diagnosed with genetic abnormalities that are consistent with life, and requiring that abortionists give a woman information about treatments and resources that may be available for her child.
- Prohibiting state taxpayer dollars and contracts from going to abortion businesses, which is especially important when state funding for education and healthcare are floundering.
Louisiana Right to Life's Legislative Director, Deanna Wallace reacted to the lawsuit, saying: "Today's lawsuit by the abortion industry is yet another reminder that they are committed to abortion-on-demand without any common sense protections for the safety of women. Louisiana legislators, both Democrat and Republican, both women and men, overwhelmingly enacted these reasonable policies in order to ensure that abortion clinics adhere to rational health and safety standards. Not only does the abortion industry wish to avoid those safety standards, but in this lawsuit they are also defending their 'right' to use the completely barbaric procedure of dismemberment abortion in order to rip living, unborn human beings limb from limb.
"We have complete faith in the ability and determination of Gov. John Bel Edwards and Attorney General Jeff Landry to defend these common sense laws that protect both women and their unborn children from the profit-driven abortion industry."
Dorinda Bordlee of the Bioethics Defense Fund echoed these thoughts, saying, "We are not surprised at this brazen attempt by the abortion industry to misuse the courts to overturn bipartisan pro-woman, pro-life laws passed this session, such as board certification standards and a 72-hour reflection period for women considering pregnancy options. They have a financial interest in lower health and safety standards and increasing their sale of dismemberment abortions. The Louisiana governor and attorney general understand that abortion is violence against women and children, and they will certainly mount a vigorous defense on behalf of the state's legitimate interest in preferring childbirth over abortion."
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