NEW ORLEANS (AP) – Judges temporarily blocked abortion bans Monday in Louisiana and Utah, while a federal court in South Carolina said a law sharply restricting the procedure would take effect immediately as the battle over whether women could terminate the pregnancy has shifted from the nation’s highest court to courtrooms across the country.
The decision of the US Supreme Court on Friday to terminate the constitutional protection for abortion opened the door to a wave of litigation. One country tried to quickly introduce bans across the country, and the other tried to stop or at least postpone such measures.
Much of the judicial work on Monday focused on “trigger laws” passed in 13 states, which were intended to take effect quickly after last week’s ruling. Additional lawsuits may also target old anti-abortion laws that have remained in books in some states and remained unenforced under Roe. Newer restrictions on abortion, which were postponed pending a ruling by the Supreme Court, are also back in play.
“We will return to court tomorrow, the next day and the next day,” Nancy Northup, president and chief executive of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said on Friday, arguing the case that led to the Supreme Court ruling.
Decisions to suspend the laws came quickly in Utah and Louisiana.
A Utah judge blocked the entry into force of an almost total abortion ban in that state for 14 days to give the court time to consider the challenges to the state’s trigger law. Planned Parenthood challenged the law, which contains narrow exceptions to rape, incest or maternal health, arguing that the law violates the provisions on equal protection and privacy in the state constitution.
“I think the immediate consequences that will outweigh any political interest in the state to stop abortions,” said Utah judge Andrew Stone.
In Louisiana, a judge in New Orleans, a liberal city in a conservative state, temporarily blocked the implementation of the abortion ban in that state after abortion rights activists claimed it was not clear. The decision is in effect until a hearing on July 8.
At least one of the state’s three abortion clinics has said it will resume procedures on Tuesday.
“We will do what we can,” said Kathleen Pittman, administrator of Hope Medical Group for Women in Shreveport. “Everything can stop screaming.”
Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, a Republican and staunch opponent of abortion, has vowed to fight the judge’s decision and enforce the law.
“We remind everyone that the laws that are now in force have been passed by the people through changes to the state constitution and the Los Angeles legislature,” Landry tweeted Monday.
In South Carolina, a federal court lifted its current restriction on abortions there, allowing the state to ban abortions once an ultrasound detects a heart rhythm, usually about six weeks after pregnancy, before many women find out they are pregnant. There are exceptions if a woman’s life is in danger or if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest.
Planned Parenthood said after the decision that it will continue to perform abortions in its clinics in South Carolina within the parameters of the new law.
Also Monday, abortion advocates asked a Florida judge to block a new law there that bans the procedure after 15 weeks with some exceptions to save the mother’s life or if the fetus has a fatal abnormality, but without exceptions for rape, incest or trafficking. of people. The Florida ACLU claims the law violates the Florida Constitution. A decision on this is expected on Thursday – a day before the law enters into force.
Abortion rights activists also went to court on Monday to try to remove restrictions in Texas, Idaho, Kentucky and Mississippi, the state at the center of the Supreme Court ruling, while the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona filed an urgent request there in Saturday, looking to block a law from 2021 that worries can be used to stop all abortions.
In its ruling Friday, the Supreme Court left it up to the states to decide whether to allow abortion.
“This is expected to lead to years of legislative and judicial challenges,” said Jonathan Turley, a professor of law at George Washington University.
As of Saturday, abortion services have been suspended in at least 11 states – either due to state laws or confusion.
In some cases, lawsuits can only gain time. Even if the courts block certain restrictions, lawmakers in many conservative states could take swift action to address any of these shortcomings.
It will probably be the same in Louisiana. The plaintiffs in the state court case do not deny that the state can now ban abortion. Instead, they argue that Louisiana now has multiple, contradictory triggers in the law.
They also argue that state law is not clear whether it prohibits abortion before the implantation of the fertilized egg in the uterus. And while the law provides an exception for “medically useless” pregnancies in cases of fetuses with fatal abnormalities, the plaintiffs note that the law does not provide a definition of the term.
Now that the Supreme Court has ruled that the US Constitution does not guarantee the right to abortion, abortion advocacy groups seek protection under state constitutions. Challenges to the enforcement of laws may be made on the grounds that the conditions for imposing prohibitions are not met or that it is inappropriate for a legislator to bind the current one.
James Bopp Jr., chief adviser to the National Committee on the Right to Life, said the wave of lawsuits by abortion advocates was not surprising. “We know that the abortion industry has largely unlimited resources, and its allies have largely unlimited resources, and of course, they are fanatical about abortions on demand throughout pregnancy,” Bopp said in an interview.
But he said the Supreme Court’s ruling should prevent abortion rights advocates from overcoming all federal challenges. And he called the efforts based on state constitutions “fantastic.”
Other lawsuits could be filed while states try to decide whether abortion bans were in place before Roe’s decision – sometimes called “zombie laws” – applies now that there is no federal protection for abortion.
For example, Wisconsin passed a law in 1849 banning abortion except to save the mother’s life. Attorney General Josh Cole, a Democrat, said he did not believe it was applicable. Opponents of abortion have called on lawmakers to impose a new ban.
Wisconsin’s Planned Parenthood, meanwhile, said it would stop all abortions immediately.
The Michigan Planned Parenthood challenged the 1931 abortion ban before the Supreme Court ruling last week. In May, a judge said the ban could not be enforced because it violated the state constitution. Proponents of abortion rights are now trying to introduce a proposed constitutional amendment to the state voting in November to protect abortion and birth control.
Idaho, Oklahoma, and Texas have passed laws that allow people to seek rewards against those who help others have abortions. The question is whether this means that people can be prosecuted across national borders and that legal challenges are likely to arise in the case of both surgical abortions and those involving medicines sent by mail to patients.
The California legislature, controlled by Democrats, on Thursday passed a bill to protect abortion providers and volunteers in the state from civil convictions imposed by other states. In liberal Massachusetts, Republican Gov. Charlie Baker signed an executive order Friday banning government agencies from supporting investigations in other states against anyone who has had a legal abortion in Massachusetts. The governor of the Democrats of Rhode Island said he would sign such an order.
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Forlithi reported from Minneapolis and Mulwhill from Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Associated Press authors Samuel Metz in Salt Lake City; Jeffrey Collins of Columbia, South Carolina; Anthony Izagire in Tallahassee, Florida; and other AP reporters in the United States contributed to this report.
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For a full coverage of the AP on the Supreme Court’s decision on abortion, see
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