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Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Ind. courts - PPIN files for temporary restraining order and injunction in U.S. District Court
Late this afternoon, at 4:38 PM, shortly after Governor Daniels announced that he had signed HEA 1210 into law, Planned Parenthood of Indiana's attorney, the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana , filed in federal court here in Indianapolis for a temporary restraining order and injunction to keep HEA 1210, a law concerning abortion, from going into effect. The first SECTION of the new law, which is effective immediately, bars the State of Indiana from entering into contracts with, or making grants to, any entities (other than hospitals and ambulatory surgical centers) that provide abortions. PPIN believes the law is unconstitutional and violates federal law.
Here is the 16-page complaint filed by PPIN.
Here is the 36-page brief filed by PPIN. From the introduction:
Recently enacted House Enrolled Act 1210 (effective in part on May 10, 2011, and in part on July I, 2011), has the effect of prohibiting certain entities that perform abortions from receiving any state funding, including funding for services unrelated to abortions. The statute also cancels existing contracts that the State of Indiana has with the entities. Although not mentioned by name in the new statute, the largest--if not the only entity--that is affected and penalized by the law is Planned Parenthood of Indiana (PPIN). Through Medicaid, the federal Preventive Health Services Block Grant, and Titles V and XX of the federal Social Security Act, PPIN is the recipient of funding to provide basic health services, education, family planning, and social services to thousands of Hoosiers. None of these services has anything to do with abortions. These contracts have now all been cancelled. The cancellation of existing contractual obligations is unlawful under the Contract Clause, U.S. CONST. art I, ยง 10, cl. I. Moreover, Medicaid recipients have an explicit federal statutory right to receive services from any Medicaid-eligible provider, and PPIN remains such a provider. Therefore, the law violates Section 1396a(a)(23) of the Medicaid Act. The State of Indiana's attempt to add new conditions, not present in federal law, to its pass-through of federal funds to PPIN is preempted by federal law and is unlawful. Finally, penalizing PPIN because it provides abortion services represents an invalid and unconstitutional condition imposed by the State.House Enrolled Act 1210 also modifies the infonned consent infonnation that PPIN and its practitioners who practice or assist with abortions must give to their patients receiving abortion services. Women must now be told both that "objective scientific infonnation shows that a fetus can feel pain at or before twenty (20) weeks of postfertilization age" and that "human physical life begins when a human ovum is fertilized by a human spenn." Given that PPIN does not perfonn abortions past the first trimester of pregnancy--indeed, at least 92% of all Indiana abortions occur in the first trimester--and that there is absolutely no evidence that fetal pain can occur during this period, the information compelled by the fonner statutory provision is misleading and irrelevant and violates the protections given to PPIN and its employees to be free from compelled speech. The latter compelled infonnation, conceming when human physical life begins, does not concem a fact at all, but represents an opinion or belief that the State is demanding that PPIN and its employees mouth. This also violates the constitutional protection against compelled speech.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on May 10, 2011 07:35 PM
Posted to Indiana Courts