Oklahoma Supreme Court Does It Again

Oklahoma’s Supreme Court overturned a second pro life bill this week. This one concerned trans-vaginal ultrasounds.

I’ve been waiting for this decision before I commented on all this. Now, I’m going to wait and get my head organized.

Then, I imagine I will have a few things to say.

Here is the CNN Report:

Washington (CNN) — Oklahoma lost another round in its effort to restrict abortions when the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday declined to hear an appeal in a case that would force women seeking an abortion to have an ultrasound first.

The justices, without comment, refused to accept the state’s appeal over HB 2780, which would require healthcare providers to perform an ultrasound scan before terminating a woman’s pregnancy.

Lower state courts found the law unconstitutional. Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt said those judges did not give proper legal weight to previous high court rulings allowing some regulation and restriction on abortions.

The new law mandated that pregnant women seeking an abortion be given the chance to view the ultrasound image and be given a medical description, including “the dimensions of the embryo or fetus, the presence of cardiac activity, if present and viewable, and the presence of external members and internal organs, if present and viewable.”

Neither the woman nor her doctor would be punished or penalized if she refused to look at those images, but the procedure, performed either vaginally or abdominally, and the explanation would be required.