Supreme Court won't revive ban on so-called 'discriminatory' abortions, Indiana

Supreme Court allows Indiana abortion law governing disposal of fetal remains, but won’t revive ban on so-called ‘discriminatory’ abortions

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/28/supreme-court-allows-indiana-abortion-law-governing-disposal-of-fetal-remains-but-wont-revive-discriminatory-abortion-bansupreme-court-allows-indiana-abortion-law-governing-disposal-of-fetal-remains-b.html

- The Supreme Court on Tuesday permitted an Indiana abortion law governing the disposal of fetal remains. But it declined to revive the state’s ban on so-called “discriminatory” abortions based on the fetus’s expected race or disability status.
- Both laws were signed by Vice President Mike Pence when he was governor of the state. The court’s action represents an incremental move on an explosive social issue that President Donald Trump has signaled he will make an election year talking point.
- The announcement comes as conservative states across the country are passing laws in the hopes of prompting the top court to review its abortion precedents included the landmark 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade.


Justice Thomas concurs on petition for writ of certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the seventh circuit

certiorari - a writ or order by which a higher court reviews a decision of a lower court.

http://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2019/images/05/28/scotus-052819.pdf

I write separately to address the other aspect of Indiana law at issue here—the “Sex Selective and Disability Abortion Ban.” Ind. Code §16–34–4–1 et seq. This statute makes it illegal for an abortion provider to perform an abortion in Indiana when the provider knows that the mother is seeking the abortion solely because of the child’s race, sex, diagnosis of Down syndrome, disability, or related characteristics. (excluding “lethal fetal anomalies]” from the definition of disability). The law requires that the mother be advised of this restriction and given information about financial assistance and adoption alternatives, but it imposes liability only on the provider. Each of the immutable characteristics protected by this law can be known relatively early in a pregnancy, and the law prevents them from becoming the sole criterion for deciding whether the child will live or die. Put differently, this law and other laws like it promote a State’s compelling interest in preventing abortion from becoming a tool of modern-day eugenics. The use of abortion to achieve eugenic goals is not merely hypothetical. The foundations for legalizing abortion in America were laid during the early 20th-century birth control movement. That movement developed alongside the American eugenics movement. And significantly, Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger recognized the eugenic potential of her cause. She emphasized and embraced the notion that birth control “opens the way to the eugenist".


(I have never seen this argument before regarding abortion and eugenics).