The 8th Circuit basically ruled that legislatures are free to pick and choose which ‘science’ they’d prefer to believe. What abortion law’s backers are hiding about suicide risks.

Ordinarily, when a doctor warns you of the risks connected to a medical procedure, you can trust that you’re being told the truth, or at least what your doctor believes to be true. For any woman seeking an abortion in South Dakota, though, this is no longer the case. Thanks to an 8th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling this week with far-reaching implications, doctors performing abortions will now be legally mandated to mislead their patients. The result is not just an attack on abortion rights that’s likely to be copied in other states-it’s an attack on the broader idea that policymaking should privilege fact over fantasy.

At issue is a 2005 law that, among other things, requires doctors to warn women that abortion would subject them to increased risk of ‘[d]epression and related psychological distress