Good News for Women and Life: Kentucky's Ultrasound Law is Here to Stay

December 11, 2019

On Monday, the Supreme Court denied cert in EMW Women’s Surgical Center v. Meier. By denying cert, the Supreme Court allowed Kentucky’s ultrasound law to stand, as the Sixth Circuit held the law was constitutional this spring.

Referred to as H.B. 2, the law requires an abortion provider, prior to performing an abortion, to perform an ultrasound; display the ultrasound images for the patient; and medically explain the development of the unborn child. In April, the Sixth Circuit upheld Kentucky’s law, holding that because the law “requires the disclosure of truthful, nonmisleading, and relevant information about an abortion, we hold that it does not violate a doctor’s right to free speech under the First Amendment.”

Kentucky is far from alone in regulating ultrasounds prior to an abortion. Twenty-six states have an ultrasound requirement. Fourteen states require abortionists to display and describe an ultrasound image before an abortion. Nine states require that the abortion provider offer the woman an opportunity to view the image. These ultrasound laws allow women to be more informed about the life growing within them, rather than keeping women in the dark. Ultrasound images are powerful tools that illustrate and humanize the life within the woman. Pro-choice advocates claim they are for women’s choice, yet they fight laws that would properly inform women about the very choice they are making.

The appellate courts are still divided on these laws. In January 2012, the Fifth Circuit upheld Texas’s ultrasound law. In Texas, abortion providers are required to show the women an ultrasound and provide a medical explanation of the size of the unborn child along with the development of the child. After April’s ruling in favor of Kentucky’s ultrasound law, the Sixth Circuit now joins the Fifth Circuit. In 2014, the Fourth Circuit struck down North Carolina’s ultrasound law, holding that it violates the free speech of abortion providers. The Supreme Court did not grant cert in that case.

It is a triumph for life that the Sixth Circuit’s opinion was allowed to stand. This is a welcome victory that allows the women in Kentucky to see their children in the womb and understand the medical aspects of the life within her. Women will now be better informed, and there is no doubt that life will be chosen more often thanks to H.B. 2.