A great article on Slate.com detailing a 2005 "informed consent" abortion law in South Dakota that is about to take effect following a ruling by the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals. South Dakota's definition of "informed consent"? Telling women that the fetus they are about to abort is "a whole, separate, unique, living human being" with which they have "an existing relationship" that is constitutionally protected. Not to mention that doctors are required to give all significant risk factors of the procedure, including depression, suicidal ideation and suicide.
Let's get beyond the big obvious issues that I have with this law - the fact that women are not children, that it is the rare woman who approaches abortion lightly, and that whether or not a woman has an "existing relationship" with her unborn child is not only beyond the realm of legislation but also none of anyone else's damn business.
The real issue here, as Slate.com points out, is the forced speech which doctors in South Dakota are being forced to engage in. It's one thing to give a patient informed consent about risk factors associated with a medical procedure. It's quite another to require a doctor to give what is in essence a scripted description of an otherwise philosophical issue - the definition of 'human being'.
The good news? There's only one abortion clinic in the entire state of South Dakota that this ruling will affect. One. In the whole state.
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