Indiana Law Forces Clinic to Prepare for Abortions It Doesn't Perform

A new Indiana law decrees that a Planned Parenthood that doesn’t provide surgical abortions must meet surgical requirements anyway, just for fun.

The ACLU filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky (PPINK) to combat Senate Enrolled Act 371, which would change the definition of “abortion clinic” to include facilities that give women the abortion pill mifepristone. Under the new law, a Lafayette clinic that provides the pill but not surgical abortions has to meet the same physical requirements as clinics that do provide surgical procedures, including separate procedure, recovery and scrub rooms. Sounds fair!

The legislation is totally legal and makes all the sense in the world, said Indiana Right to Life President Mike Finchter.

“It’s clear that Planned Parenthood sees any amount of common sense oversight as too much oversight,” Finchter said. “If Planned Parenthood truly cared about women’s health, they would desire all abortion facilities, even facilities they do not operate, to meet a basic standard.”

Of course, the new requirements will require resources that would be otherwise spent on helping women plan their pregnancies so they don’t need to get abortions.

“What Planned Parenthood does all day, every day is reduce the incidence of abortion because we help women plan their pregnancies,” Betty Cockrum, the PPINK CEO, told the Courier-Journal. Half of unintended pregnancies end in abortion in this country. So wisdom would suggest that educating and providing access to birth control so that pregnancies are planned is the way to reduce the incidences of abortion, which is an objective that we all share. But we are never able to make any advancement in those conversations in that statehouse when it comes to education and access. Instead its more government, more regulations — and more lawsuits.”