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.

Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden is one of eleven attorneys general from around the nation pressing the Secretary of HHS, Kathleen Sebelius, to stop changing ObamaCare through Executive Fiat. A letter signed by the group was sent last week protesting the numerous changes which have been ordered by the federal regime without Congressional approval.

The letter specifically called-out the regime around Obama’s decision to allow policies which are prohibited by the federal statute to be re-issued. The executive branch cannot simply change duly-enacted laws by itself.

A key portion of the letter reads:

“We support allowing citizens to keep their health insurance coverage, but the only way to fix this problem-ridden law is to enact changes lawfully: through Congressional action. The illegal actions by this administration must stop.”

Submission of the letter is seen as a precursor to potential legal action.

The attorneys general also urged the Secretary to properly deal with widespread concerns over the security of private information being collected by government websites as part of the ObamaCare application process.