The Supreme Court will not take up an Alabama law that bans an abortion procedure commonly used in the second trimester of pregnancy.
The decision means that the ban on the procedure remains blocked, because a federal judge ruled it was unconstitutional and the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision.
The petition to hear the case was filed in February by 21 states.
The procedure in question is used to end a pregnancy that is is the second trimester, and is medically known as “dilation and evacuation.” For the abortion, a doctor uses surgical tools and suction to remove the fetus piece by piece from the womb. Opponents refer to the procedure as “dismemberment abortion.”
The law blocked the procedure unless necessary to prevent health issues to a pregnant woman, and didn’t have exceptions for rape, incest, or fetal abnormalities. Doctors who violated the ban would have faced up to two years in prison.
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a concurring opinion in the decision not to take up the case. He cited the Supreme Court’s Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision, in which the Supreme Court ruled states could not place an “undue burden” on a woman’s access to abortion.
“The notion that anything in the Constitution prevents states from passing laws prohibiting the dismembering of a living child is implausible,” he wrote. “But under the ‘undue burden’ standard adopted by this Court, a restriction on abortion — even one limited to prohibiting gruesome methods — is unconstitutional if the ‘purpose or effect’ of the provision is to place a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion before the fetus attains viability.’”
The Alabama case, he said “serves as a stark reminder that our abortion jurisprudence has spiraled out of control.”
The issue of abortion is being closely watched since President Trump appointed conservative Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. In question is whether the justices will rule to weaken or overturn the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide until fetal viability, which is understood to be roughly 24 weeks into a pregnancy. If Roe were to be overturned, the decision over the legalization of abortion would fall to states.
The Supreme Court this year upheld an Indiana law that mandates fetal burial or cremation after an abortion.
