<mediadc-video-embed data-state="{"cms.site.owner":{"_ref":"00000161-3486-d333-a9e9-76c6fbf30000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b93390000"},"cms.content.publishDate":1656527135565,"cms.content.publishUser":{"_ref":"00000168-ed87-defd-a17f-fdd754cd0002","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"cms.content.updateDate":1656527135565,"cms.content.updateUser":{"_ref":"00000168-ed87-defd-a17f-fdd754cd0002","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"rawHtml":"
var _bp = _bp||[]; _bp.push({ "div": "Brid_56526977", "obj": {"id":"27789","width":"16","height":"9","video":"1043265"} }); ","_id":"00000181-b0b6-d578-a1dd-babe1ba80000","_type":"2f5a8339-a89a-3738-9cd2-3ddf0c8da574"}”>Video EmbedThe Supreme Court upended the abortion landscape on Friday when it overturned the constitutional right to an abortion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
Civil and reproductive rights groups in various states wasted no time in trying to fend off the enforcement of trigger laws meant to ban abortion immediately or soon after the fall of Roe v. Wade. The following is a collection of legal efforts taken on by organizations such as Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union to stop abortion bans.
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Louisiana
Abortion providers operating at three clinics in Louisiana successfully argued for a temporary injunction on the state’s latest trigger law, citing confusion about the legality of abortions in different circumstances due to a hodgepodge of anti-abortion laws on the books. Medical providers sued the state on Monday over an overlapping web of laws that they said were “unconstitutionally vague.” Louisiana has passed a flurry of trigger bans since 2006, leading to confusion over which one is enforceable and which ones are null and void.
Orleans Parish Civil District Judge Robin Giarrusso, a Democrat elected to the bench in 1988, temporarily blocked the state’s ban from being implemented until Judge Ethel Simms Julien, another Democrat, considers the preliminary injunction on July 8. Giarrusso’s ruling cleared the way for providers to perform abortions at least until the July 8 hearing.
Texas
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton celebrated the high court’s decision to strike down Roe v. Wade, announcing abortion is unlawful in Texas and that abortion providers could be found criminally liable for performing them. He was referring to an anti-abortion law dating back to the 1920s that had not been enforceable since Roe was settled in 1973. The ACLU sued Paxton for invoking the law, which they argued was moot once Roe was decided, and a Harris County judge granted the civil rights organization a temporary restraining order on Tuesday.
“Today a Harris County judge froze pre-Roe laws criminalizing abortion in TX,” Paxton tweeted Tuesday. “But w/ SCOTUS’s Dobbs decision, these laws are 100% in effect & constitutional. The judge’s decision is wrong. I’m immediately appealing. I’ll ensure we have all the legal tools to keep TX pro-life!”
Texas also has a separate trigger law in place that is set to go into effect later this summer that will ban all abortions from the moment of fertilization.
Utah
Utah 3rd District Judge Andrew Stone temporarily blocked the state’s abortion law for two weeks after Planned Parenthood filed suit to block it from going into effect on Friday just hours after the Supreme Court ruling. The trigger law banned abortions unless the pregnancy is a result of rape or incest, the mother’s life is in danger, or doctors who practice “maternal-fetal medicine concur” that the fetus has a lethal birth defect, such as a severe brain abnormality.
Planned Parenthood argued in the suit that the Utah Constitution protects people’s rights to make intimate personal decisions regarding pregnancy and having a family.
“The suit makes clear that the rights promised under the Utah Constitution are more expansive than those under federal law, and remain unaffected by the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision,” according to the Planned Parenthood Association of Utah.
Idaho
Planned Parenthood filed suit against Idaho on Monday, arguing that the state’s trigger ban, which is set to go into effect later this summer and would make performing abortions a felony in nearly all cases, violates the Idaho Constitution’s privacy protections and equal protection under state law. The suit also alleged that the language of the trigger ban is so vague that medical providers will be unable to know when they are legally allowed to provide care for patients experiencing miscarriage or when they may provide an abortion needed to protect a patient’s life. The court hasn’t yet responded.
Kentucky
The ACLU, the ACLU of Kentucky, and Planned Parenthood Northwest, Hawaiʻi, Alaska, Indiana, and Kentucky filed a lawsuit against the Kentucky attorney general to block the trigger law that was implemented following the Friday high court decision. The trigger law, enacted in 2019, bans abortion in all cases except when necessary to save the pregnant woman’s life or to prevent severe bodily harm if the pregnancy were to continue.
Jefferson Circuit Judge Mitch Perry scheduled a hearing on Wednesday to consider the ACLU’s request for a temporary restraining order on behalf of the state’s two abortion providers, EMW Women’s Surgical Center and Planned Parenthood.
Mississippi
The Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Mississippi’s sole abortion provider and the clinic at the center of Friday’s Supreme Court decision, filed another lawsuit on Monday in an attempt to block the state’s trigger ban from going into effect. The plaintiffs argued that a 1998 state Supreme Court case reaffirmed a provision of Mississippi’s Constitution that the “right to privacy includes an implied right to choose whether or not to have an abortion.”
“The Mississippi Supreme Court’s 1998 decision interpreting the Mississippi Constitution exists completely independent of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions about the federal constitution. It is binding precedent,” said Rob McDuff of the Mississippi Center for Justice. “As confirmed by the Mississippi Supreme Court in that case, the decision about whether and when to have children belongs to individuals and families, not to the state’s politicians.” The court hasn’t yet responded.
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Wisconsin
Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, filed a lawsuit on Tuesday challenging Wisconsin’s pre-Roe abortion ban, which the majority-Republican legislature is not expected to repeal. Evers convened a special session in the legislature last week regarding the ban, but lawmakers gaveled in and adjourned within seconds without taking any action. The law dates back to 1849 and is not currently in effect. The Democrats behind the suit argued that the anti-abortion laws passed by Republicans over a span of decades supersede the old ban.
“The Wisconsin statutes contain two sets of criminal laws that directly conflict with each other if both are applied to abortion,” Attorney General Josh Kaul said in the filing. “Specifically, Wis. Stat. § 940.04, which originated in the mid-1800s, at a time when Wisconsin women did not even have the right to vote, has been superseded and cannot be enforced as applied to abortions.” The court hasn’t yet responded.
