A Louisiana judge allowed state laws banning nearly all abortions to go into effect Friday, overturning an earlier court ruling that temporarily blocked them.
Abortions were immediately banned beginning at conception, except for threats to the life of a pregnant woman, but no exceptions for rape or incest. Under one Louisiana law, abortion providers face a possible prison term of 10 or 15 years, depending on when the pregnancy is terminated.
Louisiana is among a number of conservative states that have passed abortion restrictions or bans in anticipation of the Supreme Court striking down the constitutional right to abortion, which it did last month. The decision triggered those state bans, which quickly went into effect. However, abortion rights groups have filed lawsuits in state courts and in some cases won temporary restraining orders to block the bans, allowing abortions to continue.
In Louisiana, Judge Ethel Julien of the Orleans Civil District Court ruled Friday that the court did not have the authority to extend a temporary restraining order issued June 27 because the case was to be filed in the state capital, Baton Rouge.
Attorneys representing abortion providers in Louisiana said the ruling was a temporary setback. The case is expected to be transferred to a court in Baton Rouge, where abortion rights advocates plan to seek another stay of the abortion ban while the trial continues.
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Abortion providers in Louisiana argued in the original case that the state’s trigger laws violated the state constitution, were “void for vagueness” and did not provide enough detail about the prohibited acts — such as what exemptions exist for medical workers trying to save a pregnant woman life.
“The case is ongoing, the work is ongoing,” said Joanna Wright, one of the lead attorneys representing an abortion rights group and a Louisiana abortion clinic. “It was a decision on a technicality that had nothing to do with the merits of our case.”
Jeff Landry, Louisiana’s attorney general, celebrated the end of the temporary restraining order and vowed to continue the legal process in Baton Rouge.
“We certainly intend to continue to defend the laws of the state and to enforce the laws,” Mr. Landry said.
The Hope Medical Group for Women clinic, which continued to perform abortions after an initial court order blocked Louisiana’s trigger laws, said it will stop performing the procedure in light of Friday’s ruling.
Clinic staff members canceled scheduled abortions and referred patients to other providers, but the clinic planned to remain open to see patients for ultrasounds and “consultation options,” said Kathleen Pittman, Hope Medical Group administrator.
The rapidly changing status of Louisiana’s trigger laws is emblematic of the chaotic national landscape that has unfolded in the two weeks since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
Litigation for abortion rights groups began lawsuits challenging trigger bans in a dozen states just after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that guaranteed a constitutional right to abortion.
Judges rejected those appeals in Ohio and Mississippi, but other cases, including in Oklahoma, are ongoing. According to the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is prosecuting the case in Louisiana, abortion is no longer available in nine states.
In Mississippi, the state’s last abortion clinic — Jackson Women’s Health, which brought the case the Supreme Court used to overturn Roe — closed Thursday after a legal challenge failed and the state’s trigger law went into effect.
“We asked the Supreme Court to bring abortion policy back to the people,” said Lynn Fitch, the state’s attorney general. “Today in Mississippi, for the first time in many years, the will of the people, as expressed through their elected legislators, is no longer held up in court and will take effect.”
An Arizona court heard oral arguments Friday in a challenge to a state law defining life as beginning at conception. The law was held up by a challenge soon after it passed in 2021, but clinics in the state had stopped performing abortions since the Supreme Court’s ruling overturning Roe, fearing the state law would take effect immediately and ban abortions.
Most of the legal challenges around the country seek to establish that the state constitution protects the right to an abortion. In Louisiana, however, voters recently amended the constitution to say it does not guarantee that right, making the legal challenge steeper.
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