Oklahoma Ultrasound Law Challenged

Late Thursday, the Center for Reproductive Rights filed a legal challenge against an Oklahoma law that requires any woman seeking an abortion to undergo an ultrasound examination and listen to a doctor describe in detail what the image shows. The Oklahoma legislature passed the law in April, overriding Governor Brad Henry's veto.

The lawsuit, Nova Health Systems v. Brad Henry, was filed in Oklahoma County District Court on behalf of a Tulsa clinic. According to the Center, if the law is enforced, this clinic "will be forced to close down. The clinic provides more than 200 women abortion services a month. If it shuts down, that means more than 2000 women a year throughout Oklahoma and surrounding states will have no access to abortion. "

The Center describes the Oklahoma law as the most extreme abortion ultrasound law in the nation. It says that the law "prevents a woman from suing her doctor if he or she intentionally withholds other information about the fetus, such as a severe developmental defect. The statute also requires doctors to use a specific regimen for administering the medical abortion pill, despite that regimen being less effective and more costly than the one strongly recommended by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG)."

In challenging the law, the Center argues that it endangers the patient's health and invades her privacy. The Center also argues that the law interferes with a doctor's professional medical judgment in deciding what treatment is best for a patient.

"Nationally, this case has implications because the law at issue is among the first signs that anti-choice legislatures are beginning to take cues from last year's U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding the `Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003.' Should this law be upheld, it could encourage copycat legislation around the country."

Thanks to t r u t h o u t for publishing the Associated Press article that led me to this story.