50-20-302. Legislative purpose and findings. (1) The legislature finds that:

(a) it is essential to the psychological and physical well-being of a woman who is considering an abortion that the woman receive complete and accurate information on alternatives;

(b) the knowledgeable exercise of a woman's decision to have an abortion depends on the extent to which the woman receives sufficient information to make an informed choice between the alternatives of giving birth and having an abortion;

(c) in most instances, the only contact with a physician that a woman who has an abortion has occurs simultaneously with the abortion procedure, with little opportunity to receive counseling concerning the decision;

(d) the decision to abort is an important and often stressful one, and it is desirable and imperative that it be made with full knowledge of its nature and consequences;

(e) the medical, emotional, and psychological consequences of an abortion are serious and can be lasting;

(f) some abortion facilities or providers offer only limited or impersonal counseling opportunities; and

(g) some abortion facilities or providers hire untrained and unprofessional counselors whose primary goal is to sell abortion services.

(2) Based on the findings in subsection (1), it is the purpose of this part to:

(a) ensure that every woman who is considering an abortion receive complete information on alternatives and that every woman submitting to an abortion do so only after giving informed consent to the abortion procedure;

(b) protect unborn children from a woman's uninformed decision to have an abortion; and

(c) reduce the risk that a woman may elect an abortion, only to discover later, with devastating psychological consequences, that the decision was not fully informed.

History: En. Sec. 2, Ch. 566, L. 1995.