The three pro-life laws at stake include:
- a 20-week abortion ban
- a requirement that all women seeking abortion be given the opportunity to see ultrasound images of their children
- a bill that would regulate the abortion pill by requiring informed consent and prohibiting distribution through the mail
In a brief to the court, Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen argued,
“All three laws unquestionably enhance the health and safety of Montana women. And they represent basic regulations of the practice of medicine—bread-and-butter exercises of [state government].But Planned Parenthood’s business is abortion, and these laws require modest changes to its business practices. So Plaintiffs asked the courts to do what they couldn’t through the legislative process—save them the trouble of providing better care to Montana women.”
AG Knudsen also argued that the court should completely overturn the 1999 ruling that found a right to abortion in the state constitution, writing,
“In reversing the district court’s order, the state Supreme Court should also overrule the 1999 Armstrong precedent. This decision invented from whole cloth a state constitutional right to elective abortion even though the framers of the Montana Constitution were perfectly clear that decisions about abortion policy are to be firmly in the hands of the Legislature.”
