CNA Staff, Oct 16, 2020 / 12:31 am (CNA).- A federal judge on Wednesday ruled unconstitutional a mandatory 48-hour waiting period for women seeking abortion in Tennessee, which had been in effect since 2015.
In the legal challenge brought by Planned Parenthood and the pro-abortion Center for Reproductive Rights, Judge Bernard Friedman wrote that most women are already certain about their decision to have an abortion when they go in for their first appointment.
The judge cited testimony from abortion providers that abortion does not increase risk of negative psychological outcomes. He said the regulation placed an “undue burden” on women’s “right to abortion.”
Tennessee Right to Life, a pro-life organization active in the state, decried the court’s decision, contending that the waiting period had saved “countless unborn lives” and spared women the regret of abortion by allowing them extra time to identify life-affirming resources near them.
“Not only is this decision a slap at Tennessee’s abortion-vulnerable women, it is an affront to Tennessee’s voters who passed a 2014 constitutional amendment in which allowing a short waiting period was a key factor,” said Brian Harris, president of Tennessee Right to Life.
“Our organization remains committed to seeing a similar statute drafted and enforced during the next legislative session.”
Tennessee’s law required abortion doctors to inform a woman during her first appointment “that numerous public and private agencies and services are available to assist her during her pregnancy and after the birth of her child” if she chooses not to have the abortion.
Barring a medical emergency, a patient was then required to wait 48 hours before the second appointment and proceeding with the abortion.
Though waiting periods have been struck down before in state courts, this case marks the first time a federal court has struck down an abortion waiting period.
Under Tennessee law, the district court’s striking down of the 48-hour waiting period would automatically bring a 24-hour waiting period into effect for the state, but Friedman also blocked the state from enforcing the 24-hour requirement.
The Tennessee Attorney General’s Office is considering appealing Judge Friedman’s decision.
At least 26 states mandate waiting periods for women seeking abortions, most of them 24 hours. Five states— Utah, Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and South Dakota— have a 72-hour waiting period in place.
In Iowa, the legislature passed a 72-hour waiting period during May 2017, which the Iowa Supreme Court in 2018 declared unconstitutional. The Iowa House and Senate passed a 24-hour waiting period requirement for abortion during June 2020, which also requires a woman to have the chance to view an ultrasound of the unborn child and to receive information on adoption.
In January 2020, the authors of a study from Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH) reported that approximately 95% of women who had abortions did not regret their decision five years after the fact, even if they did initially experience regret. Friedman cited that study in his opinion.
Dr. Priscilla Coleman, a professor of human development and family studies at Bowling Green State University who testified in the Tennessee case, told CNA that she disagrees with that study’s conclusion and methodology.
In addition, larger studies have turned up opposite conclusions. While it did not directly measure “regret,” a study by Dr. D. Paul Sullins of The Catholic University of America published in 2016 followed more than 8,000 women for over 13 years, and found that a significant increase in the relative risk of mental health disorders such as depression and anxiety for women who have abortions.
[…]
““As a founding principle of our country, we have always welcomed immigrant and refugee populations, and through the social services and good works of the Church, we have accompanied our brothers and sisters in integrating to daily American life,” Bishop Mario Dorsonville, auxiliary bishop of Washington and chair of the US bishops’ Comittee on Migration, said Jan. 2.”
Someone needs to take a remedial US history class.
SOL,
Which part of US history did you think they need a remedial class on?
Who are most Americans originally if not immigrants?
I’d agree it’s not correct to say that we have always, at all times welcomed immigrants and refugees but we certainly have done that selectively. And Catholics have for the greater part been among the groups of immigrants not warmly welcomed.
We need immigration to counteract the current birth dearth but we don’t have to have open borders or risk our national security. There should be a reasonable and humane approach to immigration.
Has it occurred to you that mass immigration is a cause of the drop in birthrates? By driving up the cost of living (housing, heath care, taxes, etc.), while depressing wages, it makes family formation so much more difficult.
Tony,
Birthrates are plummeting globally with or without immigration. Even government incentives to have a replacement level birthrate have failed.
Hungary is offering tax incentives for families and hopefully they’ll have some success.
Mrscracker,
The founding American people were not immigrants but colonists/settlers. They didn’t enter into a pre-existing polity and receive citizenship or some other form of membership from another people. The whole “America is a land of immigrants” myth was created by leftist subversives even if used by 20th ce nationalists for their own purposes after the fact, more than 3 centuries after the first British colonists started settling this country. Many of the founding fathers after the revolution even explicitly wrote on the question of whether anyone non-British should be allowed to immigrate to the US.
This original Anglo-American (and Protestant Christian) heritage and identity is what the left is trying to erase and unfortunately too many Catholic bishops are assisting in this, even if the bishops seek to replace it with some vague “Catholic” identity.
This system is currently in a stage of collapse, and continued immigration will further destabilization and increase the likelihood of wide-scale violence, regardless of how necessary believers in infinite economic growth say immigrants are for that.
SOL,
Good morning!
My daddy’s side of the family has been here for 400 years. I went to the UK a few years ago and visited the parish church of a 17th century colonial ancestor. In his memorial he’s referred to as “Henry the Immigrant” because he migrated to the American Colonies.
🙂
You know, the longer your ancestors have lived in North America the more likely you are to find non Anglo Saxon ancestry or ancestors who came as convicts. The American colonies were a dumping ground for thousands of British convicts until the Revolutionary War. After that, the British had to turn to Australia and Tasmania to dump their unwanted.
Beyond chattel slavery, folks of African ancestry have been here for 400 plus years. Many were free people of color and many intermarried with white colonists.
And of course, our American Indians have their own perspectives on immigration.
History is complicated and the more you look at it, the more humble you feel. Most of us have very modest beginnings and sometimes, we find very surprising narratives along the way.
Your argument seems to be that, since we are all the descendants of immigrants (in the broadest sense of the word), there is no justification for this nation (or really, any nation) to have a restrictive immigration policy. Apparently, this Ellis Island sentimentalism must override all other political, social, cultural and economic considerations. Does a country have a right to try to maintain its ethnic and cultural balance by limiting who is allowed in?
More mindless, liberal rubbish from bishops who seem utterly incapable of, not to mention unwilling to, speak in anything other than left wing cliches. Will they ever declare solidarity with the American people?
Looked up the bishop in question.
Wikipedia: Mario Eduardo Dorsonville-Rodríguez (born October 31, 1960) is a Colombian-born bishop of the Catholic Church in the United States.
Like Jose Gomez, another immigrant who is presumptuous enough to lecture Americans about American history and identity.
Thanks for the information. I suppose the good bishop has admonished the elites in Colombia on the need to clean up the corruption and to improve the nation’s economy that has apparently created such intolerable conditions.
Wish the bishops (and the nuns!!) would show a little solidarity with the dyslexic/dyscalculaic/etc community.
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Just because dyslexics frequently have high intelligence does not mean they all go to MIT and walk out with $75,000 starting income.
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Many suffer socially as well as educationally and the job situation upon adulthood can look bleak. As many prisoners are dyslexic, I think it is a good bet if it was caught early in school, we’d have fewer children in trouble and fewer adults in prison.
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I mean no ill will toward those looking for a better life, but we have plenty of hurting children/adults who were born here. Don’t they deserve the same concern?
Tony,
North Americans, with the exception of those descended from our Indian tribes, are all the product of quite diverse immigrant populations from the past 400-500 years. I dislike the term “diverse ” because it’s become a cliche, but it really does describe our immigrant history.
I don’t think race or ethnicity should even enter into a Catholic conversation regarding what to conserve in America. Color and ethnicity simply don’t signify but culture does.
A Judeo Christian culture is what conservative Christians and others should be concerned about preserving. Not Anglo Saxonism. Culture, not color is what’s critical.
And yes, I strongly believe that sovereign nations have a right to secure their borders and enforce immigration laws. And preserve their unique cultures. But you have to have enough population to ensure a functioning society to pass that culture down to. Societies that are ageing and not reproducing themselves won’t be capable of that and will eventually be replaced.
Nature abhors a vacuum.
Immigrants – they are ambassadors of the Good News.
All of them? How so? In what way?