Commentary

State Attorneys General in a dozen states recently filed a “Friend of the Court” brief in a lawsuit being brought by Planned Parenthood against the state of North Carolina.

That southern state has had a 20-week ban in place since Roe v. Wade was handed down. But it amended the law a couple of years ago to tighten the exemptions under which late term abortions may be permissible.  The amendment allows abortions after 20 weeks only when the mother’s life is threatened or a continued pregnancy would likely result in a serious physical impairment of the mother.

Planned Parenthood claims that those tighter restrictions violate its constitutional rights, as well as the constitutional rights of its future, potential clients.

Among the many bizarre aspects of abortion law is the wide latitude federal judges have granted Planned Parenthood to bring civil lawsuits. Generally speaking, a person must demonstrate at least probable harm in order to have standing in a federal lawsuit.  Yet Planned Parenthood is regularly allowed to challenge laws on the basis that they represent hypothetical people who may never actually seek an abortion.  Even more bizarre is that conflation of an individual woman’s purported constitutional right to an abortion with claims by Planned Parenthood that it has, somehow, acquired those same constitutional “rights”.

It is that kind of legal slop which is tolerated and essential to Planned Parenthood’s tyranny of the federal court system.

The 12 states rising to help defend North Carolina and preborn children across the nation are: West Virginia, Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota and Texas. We note, with real disappointment, that Idaho’s Lawrence Wasden is not among the list.

The lawsuit is pending in a North Carolina federal district court.