Indiana Abortion Law Faces New Challenge

Indiana's new abortion law is facing another challenge, this time over a provision that requires women to have an ultrasound at least 18 hours before an abortion.

Planned Parenthood and the ACLU of Indiana are challenging the law.

Indiana law already required women to have an ultrasound before they have an abortion. At Planned Parenthood, that meant performing the ultrasound just before the procedure.  

ACLU of Indiana legal director Ken Falk said that change requires women to make two, separate and often lengthy trips to have an abortion – for instance, the closest abortion clinic for women in Fort Wayne is more than a hundred miles away. And he says that imposes an undue burden on those women.

“After the Supreme Court’s decision last week which really strongly emphasized the fact that abortion regulations and restrictions have to have some relationship to a woman’s health – if that is their articulated purpose – that it really allowed for us to reexamine the law,” Falk said.

A federal judge last week halted other parts of the abortion law – including a ban on selective abortions – in a separate lawsuit filed by the ACLU and Planned Parenthood.