The Supreme Court today upheld an Indiana law prohibiting abortionists from disposing of aborted babies as medical waste. The law requires aborted babies to be treated with “humane dignity.”
Planned Parenthood successfully sued to stop implementation of the law shortly after it was passed, alleging due process and equal protection violations. PP was afraid that the requirement to treat aborted babies with dignity meant courts will find that “human life begins at conception and that a fetus is a human being.” Of course, this is precisely why this law is so important—it sends a clear message that preborn children are deserving of the same humane treatment as other persons.
The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals permanently enjoined (blocked) the statute, saying that states have no interest in the manner in which aborted babies are disposed of since there is “no potential life at stake.”
Today the Supreme Court reversed that ruling, holding that states do have a legitimate interest in the proper disposal of fetal remains and that the statute is rationally related to that interest.
Life Legal filed an amicus or “friend of the Court” brief with the Supreme Court last year, arguing that states also have an interest in protecting the integrity and ethics of the medical profession. Abortionists are professional killers who terminate the lives of preborn children day in and day out. They are hardened to the inherent worth of each human life. They literally treat human beings like trash.
The Kermit Gosnell case shed light on the horrific way unborn babies targeted for abortion are treated. Gosnell cut off the feet of babies he aborted and stored them in jars. He stuffed whole bodies of aborted babies—some well into the third trimester—in juice containers and milk jugs. He stored babies and body parts in his freezer (see photo above). These barbaric practices will now be prohibited in Indiana and other states with similar laws.
We filed our brief on behalf of Dr. Beverly McMillan, a former abortion provider who opened the first abortion facility in Mississippi. Dr. McMillan stopped doing abortions after she realized that the baby body parts she had viewed as trash belonged to human beings.
Life Legal is currently working with pro-life teams to close the last remaining abortion mill in Mississippi.