Recently, Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill appealed to the Supreme Court to review a lawsuit against an Indiana anti-abortion law that restricts abortion access as well as enforces regulations on how to dispose fetal tissue. This could be the first case on abortion restrictions that the Supreme Court rules on since Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation, and it potentially could allow states across the country to implement similar regulations.
Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky filed the initial suit, which led to an injunction and then a permanent block. The law gives anti-discrimination protections to fetuses, which would prevent a person from receiving an abortion based on the fetus’s sex, race, or disability, preventing an abortion in the case of fetal abnormality. The law also states that fetal remains must be cremated or buried, even though regulations such as this have been previously struck down in federal courts.
Attorney General Hill has argued that women should not be allowed to determine “which” pregnancies to carry to term.
Legal scholars do not know how Kavanaugh would rule on Indiana’s anti-abortion law, which Vice President Mike Pence signed, but leaked emails indicated that Kavanaugh may not believe Roe v. Wade is “settled by law of the land.” The Supreme Court only hears a small number of cases each year, but it has previously never heard a fetal remains argument against abortion or a discrimination-based argument. If the court rules in favor of the Indiana law, then other states may soon pass similar restrictive anti-abortion laws as well.
Media Resources: Bustle 10/29/18
