Planned Parenthood Great Northwest v. Commissioner of the Indiana State Department of Health

Plaintiff filed a lawsuit challenging the State of Indiana’s “aid-or-assist” law, which forbids knowingly aiding or assisting an unemancipated pregnant minor in obtaining an abortion without first satisfying Indiana’s parental consent and notice requirements. Defendant appealed from a permanent injunction entered by the district court enjoining against enforcement of the statute as applied to plaintiff’s offering of information or referrals to its minor patients about legal abortion practices in other states. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, finding that the state’s aid-or-assist law, as applied to the information and referrals at issue, is a content-based restriction on protected speech and failed strict scrutiny. (ROVNER, concurring, and SCUDDER, specially concurring)