NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Louisiana officials have again been blocked from enacting a near-total abortion ban, this time under a judge’s order issued Tuesday by a state court in the capital.
Judge Donald Johnson’s order halts enforcement temporarily while lawyers for a north Louisiana clinic and other abortion rights supporters pursue a lawsuit challenging the legislation. Johnson scheduled a hearing for next Monday.
Attorney General Jeff Landry criticized the decision in a series of Twitter posts.
“Having the court system create a legal circus is frustrating,” Landry wrote in one post.
“The rule of law must be respected and I will not rest until it is. Unfortunately, we will have to wait a little longer for that to happen,” he added.
Kathleen Pittman, director of the North Louisiana clinic, which was the lead plaintiff in the suit, expressed relief in a phone interview. Pittman said the Hope Medical Group for Women clinic in Shreveport is ready to resume counseling and abortions. Two other clinics in Louisiana are in the capital Baton Rouge and New Orleans.
“We look forward to arguing for a preliminary injunction before Judge Johnson next Monday, and in the meantime, we take comfort in the fact that vital health care for women has been restored in the state of Louisiana,” Joanna Wright, an attorney for the clinic, said in an email.
The lawsuit began in New Orleans, where a judge issued a temporary injunction blocking enforcement on June 27, just three days after the US Supreme Court overturned its 1973 decision establishing nationwide abortion rights.
But a second New Orleans judge sent the case to Baton Rouge on Friday, saying state law required it to be heard in the state capital. Judge Ethel Julien then said that because the case would no longer be heard in her court, she did not have the authority to extend the temporary restraining order blocking the law.
Before Johnson’s ruling, which was dated Monday, July 11, Landry’s attorneys argued in a filing in Baton Rouge that the temporary restraining order cannot be renewed once it expires.
Louisiana’s law included “trigger language” that made it effective when the Supreme Court struck down abortion rights.
The plaintiffs in the case do not deny that the state can now ban abortions as a result of the Supreme Court decision, but say the current state law is unconstitutionally vague. They argue that Louisiana now has multiple conflicting trigger mechanisms in the law. They also argue that state law is unclear about whether it prohibits abortion before a fertilized egg is implanted in the uterus.
And while the law provides an exception for “medically futile” pregnancies in cases of fetuses with fatal abnormalities, the plaintiffs note that it does not define the term and that state health officials have not yet provided a list of conditions that would qualify the requirements. The suit claims state law is unclear about when the ban goes into effect and about medical exemptions to it.
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Associated Press writer Sarah Klein in Baton Rouge, La., contributed to this report.
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