ENROLLED
2018 Regular Session
HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOL UTION NO. 71
BY REPRESENTATIVES EDMONDS, BAGLEY, CHANEY, COX, HENSGENS,
HOFFMANN, HORTON, AND JACKSON AND SENATOR MI LLS
A CONCURRENT RESOL UTION
To urge and request Attorney General Jeff Landry to prepare and file an amicus brief in
federal court to support the state of Mississippi's litigation efforts to ban elective
abortions after fifteen weeks gestation.
WHEREAS, the Legislature of Louisiana commends the efforts of the state of
Mississippi to limit abortion in a manner consistent with its state interests, including the ban
of abortions after fifteen weeks gestation which was enacted in 2018 by the Mississippi
Legislature; and
WHEREAS, modern human embryology textbooks and peer-reviewed scientific
literature establish that "the union of an oocyte and a sperm is the beginning of a new human
being", as was cited by Keith L. Moore in Before We Are Born: Essentials of Embryology
2 (Saunders ed., 7th ed. 2008); and
WHEREAS, abortion ends the life of a unique, individual, unborn human being
whose heartbeat can be detected as early as week six of gestation, who has distinct fingers
and toes by ten weeks gestation, and who at twelve weeks gestation has taken on "the human
form" in all relevant aspects, as is cited by the United States Supreme Court in Gonzales v.
Carhart, 550 U.S. 124, 160 (2007); and
WHEREAS, the majority of abortion procedures after fifteen weeks gestation are
performed by a method known as dilation and evacuation, which involves the use of surgical
instruments that dismember the limbs and sometimes crush the skull of the unborn child to
remove the child from the narrowly dilated opening to the womb; and
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WHEREAS, Act No. 264 of the 2016 Regular Session, which is now being defended
in federal court by the Louisiana office of the attorney general, bans the brutal and violent
dismemberment abortion procedure that can be used even before fifteen weeks gestation; and
WHEREAS, Louisiana has a compelling state interest to ban abortion by
dismemberment based on the state's duty to safeguard the well-being of its citizens against
the medical and psychological health risks to the mother, to prevent the demeaning effects
on the ethics and integrity of the medical profession, and to prevent the barbaric cruelty and
pain inflicted on the living unborn human being; and
WHEREAS, R.S. 40:1061.8, in pertinent part, declares that "the longstanding policy
of this State is to protect the right to life of the unborn child from conception by prohibiting
abortion impermissibly only because of the decisions of the United States Supreme Court
and that, therefore, if those decisions of the United States Supreme Court are ever reversed
or modified or the United States Constitution is amended to allow protection of the unborn
then the former policy of this state to prohibit abortions shall be enforced"; and
WHEREAS, it is the longstanding policy of this state to express a preference for
childbirth over abortion because of the state's valid interests in both the medical and
psychological health of the pregnant woman, as well as the life of the unborn child as
recognized by the United States Supreme Court in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S.
833, 883 (1992); and
WHEREAS, the United States Supreme Court has made clear that abortion is a
"unique act" (Casey, 505 U.S. at 852) and is "inherently different from other medical
procedures" (Harris v. McRae, 448 U.S. 297, 325 (1980)), because in abortion, "the fetus
will be killed" (Gonzales v. Carhart, 550 U.S. 124, 159 (2007)); also unique is the impact
of the abortion on the woman herself because, unlike other medical procedures, "[w]hether
to have an abortion requires a difficult and painful moral decision which some women come
to regret"; and
WHEREAS, in furtherance of Louisiana's unqualified interest in the preservation of
human life, the Legislature of Louisiana is in agreement with the words of Thomas Jefferson
that "[t]he care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only
legitimate object of good government" (Letter to the Republican Citizens of Washington
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County, Maryland, March 31, 1809, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 8 at 165, ed.
H.A. Washington (1871)).
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Legislature of Louisiana does hereby
urge and request Attorney General Jeff Landry to file an amicus brief in support of the
efforts by the state of Mississippi in the defense of the Mississippi statute which prohibits
elective abortion after fifteen weeks gestation to the extent consistent with Louisiana state
interests, and that the filing be made to the United States District Court for the Southern
District of Mississippi and, if necessary, to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth
Circuit and in the United States Supreme Court.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that a copy of this Resolution be transmitted to Jeff
Landry, Attorney General of Louisiana.
SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE
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