Box v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky
Description: Planned Parenthood challenged an Indiana law ensuring that pregnant women are given the truthful information that an ultrasound provides.
Pro-life advocates urge US Supreme Court to hear case on Indiana ultrasound law
Focus on the Family operates “Option Ultrasound,” a program that provides grants to pregnancy centers and allows them to purchase machines and train professionals who will perform the ultrasound examinations. Focus’s program has provided grants to Indiana pregnancy centers.
“Mothers deserve complete and accurate information about the development and humanity of their children, and ultrasounds are a vital tool in providing that,” said ADF Senior Counsel Denise Burke. “Indiana’s law ensures mothers have access to these images before making abortion decisions. Anyone who deliberately attempts to shield a pregnant mother from understanding the true implications of an abortion procedure doesn’t truly believe in a mother’s free ‘choice,’ but rather harbors a different motivation altogether.”
The brief filed with the Supreme Court in Box v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky explains that Focus’s “Option Ultrasound” has collected “raw data from Indiana [that] reveals the considerable, life-affirming impact of ultrasounds. In Indiana, 861 women have received counseling and elected to undergo ultrasounds at pregnancy centers that received ‘Option Ultrasound’ grants. Of those women, an astonishing 839—or 97%—chose life. In other words, when mothers are shown the truth about the babies growing inside their wombs before undergoing a serious medical procedure, they decide overwhelmingly not to kill their preborn daughters and sons. And that result, of course, is the very state interest that Indiana desired when it enacted its ultrasound law.”
“Every woman should have all the information she needs to make the healthiest choice for everyone involved in a pregnancy,” said ADF Senior Counsel Kevin Theriot, vice president of the ADF Center for Life. “As the U.S. Supreme Court has previously recognized, ‘the State has a legitimate interest in promoting the life or potential life of the unborn.’ Indiana’s law does not substantially burden a pregnant mother’s ‘choice’ to take her baby’s life, but it does provide her with the information necessary for that choice to be a real one.”
The brief also includes stories of expecting mothers and abortion-clinic personnel who changed their minds about abortion and affirmed the humanity of unborn children after viewing ultrasound images of such children.
- Pronunciation guide: Theriot (TAIR’-ee-oh)
Alliance Defending Freedom is an alliance-building, non-profit legal organization that advocates for the right of people to freely live out their faith.
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ABOUT Denise Burke
Denise Burke serves as senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom, where she is a member of the Center for Public Policy. In this role, her efforts are directed toward protecting life from conception to natural death and defending the conscience rights of health care professionals. Prior to joining ADF, Burke served as vice president of legal affairs for Americans United for Life. She began her career with the Judge Advocate General’s Corps, United States Air Force, both on active duty and in the reserve. Rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel, she served as an instructor at the USAF JAG School and on the editorial board of the Air Force Law Review. In response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Burke volunteered to serve again on active duty. In recognition of her service, the Air Force awarded her the Meritorious Service Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, and the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal. A member of the state bar of Texas, Burke is admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court, the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, and multiple federal district and appellate courts. She earned her bachelor’s degree in business management from the University of Maryland, followed by her Juris Doctor from Southern Methodist University.
ABOUT Kevin Theriot
Kevin Theriot serves as senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom, where he is a key member of the Center for Life Team working to defend pro-life laws and speech and protect medical rights of conscience. He has litigated cases in the areas of religious freedom, the sanctity of life, and marriage and family. Theriot is admitted to the bar in eight states, the U.S. Supreme Court, and numerous other federal courts of appeal and district courts. Theriot received his law degree from Vanderbilt University and has been litigating First Amendment issues since 1993.