Posted on 09/18/2002 8:04:43 AM PDT by toenail
Judge tosses right-to-know abortion law
By Susan Spencer-Wendel, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 17, 2002
WEST PALM BEACH -- In a blow to anti-abortion activists, a Palm Beach County judge struck down a law mandating what abortion doctors must tell and provide potential patients.
The decision, by Circuit Judge Ronald Alvarez, further freezes the law known as the Women's Right-to-Know Act. The act, challenged legally since its passage in 1997, dictated a generic checklist of things doctors must tell a patient with little regard for her individual situation. It required doctors to tell women the nature and risks of an abortion "that a reasonable patient would consider material" to making a decision, the age of the fetus and the medical risk of taking the pregnancy to term.
Alvarez wrote that the law infringes on a woman's ability "to receive her physician's opinion as to what is best for her considering her particular circumstances. This is constitutionally impermissible," Alvarez said.
"The handcuffs are off the doctors," said attorney Louis Silber, who represented Presidential Women's Center of West Palm Beach in its fight to overturn the law. "It removes a significant barrier or obstacle in the process."
What is particularly offensive is that a woman with an abnormal fetus or a raped woman would have to sit with a doctor and discuss taking the pregnancy to full term, Silber said.
After Women's Right-to-Know Act was passed, the Presidential Women's Center sued the Florida Department of Health, the agency that would discipline doctors for failing to perform the tasks. A local appeals court in 1998 granted a temporary block of the law, which has remained in force since, meaning the law has never been put in practice.
After the 4th District Court of Appeal's decision, the case sat for years until the Florida Attorney General's Office and Department of Health renewed their fight for the law, which eventually led to Alvarez's decision.
Silber called the state's continued fight the most vicious attack on women's clinics and reproductive rights he's seen in 14 years of abortion-rights litigation.
Alvarez's permanent injunction Friday sets the stage for a higher legal battle.
Department of Health General Counsel William Large said the agency respectfully disagrees with the opinion and will appeal it again to the 4th District Court of Appeal. From there it would move to the Florida Supreme Court.
The department is trying to protect the women of Florida, ensuring them the most information possible before receiving an abortion, Large said. Women who seek abortions are an extremely vulnerable population who rarely will take recourse when something goes wrong. The law protects them, he said.
"I don't believe there ever were any handcuffs on any physicians with respect to this statute," Large said.
Abortion-rights activists opposed the law saying it created a different set of informed consent standards for abortion providers than for regular doctors.
The president of the Palm Beach County Right to Life League, Richard Giesman of Palm Beach Gardens, said even then it wasn't enough. "If I'm going for open heart surgery, I want to hear all about it. I would want to see pictures of it. I want to understand everything," Giesman said. "We're doing an injustice to anyone not giving them the full information to make an informed decision."
Planned Parenthood chief Lillian Tamayo said it's not about withholding information from abortion seekers, but about creating a different standard for abortion providers than for other doctors.
"Criminal penalties could be expected or placed upon physicians for failing to provide certain kinds of information," Tamayo said. "That's wrong."
susan_spencer_wendel@pbpost.com
So it's liberal scumbags right on up the line, all of whom can be counted on to carry water for their abortion mill masters. The baby killing business means lots of boats, vacations, caviar and wine for these people. And, of course, campaign fund bonanzas for every one of these scumbag Democrats. This law is dead in the formaldehyde as far as Florida is concerned.
Is this entirely a state issue, or could this somehow end up at SCOTUS?
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