U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts has cleared the way for Indiana's law that requires girls under 18 years old to have consent from a parent or a guardian to get an abortion, unless they petition the court to waive the consent requirement.
"This law that the Supreme Court will now allow to go back into effect will at minimum allow parents to be notified so that they can at least be at a hearing and know that they have a minor daughter who is making a life-changing decision for her and for her baby," comments Indiana Right to Life's Mike Fichter.
He says state residents will also benefit from a court lifting a ban on discriminatory abortions.
"That law, under Indiana's civil rights code, actually prohibits an abortion in Indiana if that abortion is based on Down syndrome, a potential disability, the baby's sex, the baby's race, or even the national origin of the baby's mother," the pro-lifer details.
That law had been blocked by a court in 2016, but the decision has been lifted.
Both cases stemmed from the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade last month.
As for making a difference at the local level, though she admits it may be "boring," Mary Rose Short, director of outreach for California Right to Life, says every community should have someone who checks city council agendas and school board agendas regularly "just to see what they're trying to slip through."
"There's a lot of cities now that are trying to pass resolutions that declare that abortion is a human right or a constitutional right," Short notes. "They're just on their own deciding to defy the Supreme Court."
She says declaring that does not necessarily make a difference right now, but she is looking ahead to when those cities might start deciding that since they declared themselves a sanctuary city for the "right to choose," then they had better pass some ordinances to keep sidewalk counselors from "harassing" women as they go into abortion clinics.
That is something Short says is happening up and down the state of California.
"I assume [it is happening] in other places as well," she tells AFN. "So, city council resolutions, school boards -- everyone should be tracking that [because] you never know what the abortion industry will be trying to slip through at the local level."
For example, a southern California school board opted not to vote Monday on an idea to put a Planned Parenthood Los Angeles Clinic on a high school campus. Short credits that decision to the hundreds of people who showed up to protest, even after the vote had been pulled from the agenda.
