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https://www.scotusblog.com/2019/05/justices-reverse-in-part-on-indiana-abortion-law/#more-286331Justices reverse in part on Indiana abortion law
This morning the Supreme Court issued orders from the justices’ private conference last week. After considering the case at 15 consecutive conferences, the justices finally acted on a petition by Indiana, which had asked the court to review a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit striking down a law regulating abortions in that state. Today the justices handed the state a partial victory, reversing the lower court’s decision with respect to one provision of the law but leaving it in place with respect to another.
The case, Box v. Planned Parenthood, was a challenge to two provisions of an Indiana law regulating abortion that was signed by now-Vice President Mike Pence while he was still governor of Indiana. The first provision, the state explained, was based on the idea that fetal remains are “nothing less than the remains of a partially gestated fetus and should be treated with the same dignityâ€: Passed after the discovery that a medical-waste firm had been accepting and disposing of fetal tissue, the law requires fetal remains to be either buried or cremated. The second provision, sometimes referred to as the “nondiscrimination†provision, bars abortions based on the disability (such as Down syndrome), sex or race of the fetus.
Planned Parenthood went to federal court in Indiana, seeking to have the law declared unconstitutional. The district court agreed and blocked the state from enforcing the law. It ruled that the state did not have a valid interest in requiring fetal remains to be treated like other human remains because the Supreme Court has held that the fetus is not a person. The district court also struck down the “nondiscrimination†provision, reasoning that the state cannot prevent a woman from ending her pregnancy before the fetus is viable, regardless of the reason.
After the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit upheld the district court’s ruling, Indiana urged the Supreme Court to take up the case, telling the justices that the fetal-remains provision “expands on long-established legal and cultural traditions of recognizing the dignity and humanity of the fetus.†And the nondiscrimination provision, the state explained, is a response to new technology that allows “women to make a choice not contemplated at the time of Roe v. Wadeâ€: “the choice of which child to bear.â€
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