Supreme Court Lets Kentucky Abortion Ultrasound Law Take Effect

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday said it would not hear a challenge to a Kentucky law that requires doctors performing abortions to display fetal ultrasounds and to describe the images to women seeking the procedure. The court’s action means the law will go into effect.

As is its custom, the court gave no reasons for turning down the appeal in the case, EMW Women’s Surgical Center v. Meier, No. 19-417. There were no noted dissents.

The case was brought by the only licensed abortion clinic in the state and three doctors who work there. They challenged a 2017 law that requires doctors to give a detailed description of fetal ultrasound images, including “the presence of external members and internal organs.” Doctors are also required to make the fetal heartbeat audible if they can.

This ordinarily takes place, the challengers’ petition seeking review said, while the woman “lies half-naked on the examination table with her feet in stirrups, and usually with a probe inside her vagina.” The law specifies that women may avert their eyes and ask that the volume of the audio of the heartbeat be turned down or off.