Protesters wave signs and demonstrate in support of access to abortion in front of a New Orleans courthouse on July 8.
Rebecca Santana / AP
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Rebecca Santana / AP
Protesters wave signs and demonstrate in support of access to abortion in front of a New Orleans courthouse on July 8.
Rebecca Santana / AP
NEW ORLEANS – Louisiana authorities were once again blocked from enforcing a near-total abortion ban, this time by order of a judge issued by a state court in the capital on Tuesday.
Judge Donald Johnson’s order temporarily halted enforcement while lawyers for a northern Louisiana clinic and other abortion rights advocates pursued a lawsuit challenging the law. Johnson will testify next Monday.
State Attorney General Jeff Landry criticized the ruling in a series of articles on Twitter.
Landry wrote in a post: “For the judiciary to create a legitimate circus is disappointing.
“The rule of law must be followed, and I will not rest until it happens. Unfortunately, we will have to wait a little longer for that to happen,” he added.
Kathaleen Pittman, the director of the northern Louisiana clinic, the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit, expressed her 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 Louisiana clinics are located in the capital city of Baton Rouge and New Orleans.
Joanna Wright, an attorney for the clinic, said: “We look forward to arguing for a preliminary verdict before Judge Johnson next Monday and in the meantime we take comfort in the fact that Critical health care for women has been restored in Louisiana”. , said in an email.
The case originated in New Orleans, where a judge issued a temporary restraining order on June 27, just three days after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a 1973 ruling establishing nationwide abortion rights.
But a second New Orleans judge sent the case to Baton Rouge on Friday, saying state law requires it to be heard in the capital. Judge Ethel Julien later said that because the case was no longer heard in her court, she did not have the authority to extend the temporary restraining order to prevent law enforcement.
Ahead of Johnson’s ruling, delivered on Monday, July 11, attorneys for Landry argued in a filing in Baton Rouge that the temporary restraining order cannot be extended once it has expired.
Louisiana’s law included “activation language” that made it effective when the Supreme Court revoked the right to abortion.
The lawsuit’s plaintiffs do not deny that the state can now ban abortion under a Supreme Court ruling, but they say the state’s existing law is vaguely unconstitutional. They argue that Louisiana currently has many conflict-triggering mechanisms in the law. They also argue that state law is unclear about whether it prohibits abortion before a fertilized egg implants in the uterus.
And while the law makes an exception for “medically useless” pregnancies in cases where the fetus has fatal abnormalities, the plaintiffs note that it does not provide a definition about the term, and state health officials have yet to provide a list of eligibility. The lawsuit claims state law is unclear about when the ban goes into effect and the medical exceptions to it.
