Supreme Court declines to hear challenge to Kentucky abortion ultrasound law News
© WikiMedia (Debra Sweet)
Supreme Court declines to hear challenge to Kentucky abortion ultrasound law

The US Supreme Court on Monday declined to review a Kentucky law that requires a pregnant individual to receive an ultrasound before having an abortion. This means that the law, which was upheld by the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, will stand.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed the appeal on behalf of physicians at the only remaining abortion clinic in Kentucky, arguing that the law was a compelled-speech mandate, “wholly unrelated to traditional informed consent and therefore presumptively unconstitutional.”

The Sixth Circuit held that the law does not violate a doctor’s right to free speech under the First Amendment. The Sixth Circuit cited Planned Parenthood v. Casey, writing that “even though an abortion-informed-consent law compels a doctor’s disclosure of certain information, it should be upheld so long as the disclosure is truthful, non-misleading, and relevant to an abortion.”

No justices commented or issued a dissent on the denial.