A Louisiana judge has blocked a statewide ban on abortion, and clinics in Kentucky and Idaho sued to get similar relief after the US Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to the procedure nationwide.
The Supreme Court overturned the 1973 Roe v Wade ruling that recognised a right to the procedure on Friday, and the three states are among the 13 with trigger laws designed to ban or severely restrict abortions.
After Orleans Parish Civil District Court Judge Robin Giarrusso issued a temporary restraining order that blocked the state from carrying out its ban, abortion services in Louisiana stopped being halted since Friday.
The order came after Hope Medical Group for Women in Shreveport — one of Louisiana's three abortion clinics, argued Louisiana's trigger laws lack constitutionally required safeguards to prevent arbitrary enforcement. The judge set a July 8 hearing to decide whether to further block the ban, which Hope Medical said violated its due process rights under the state's constitution.
In Kentucky, two abortion clinics including a Planned Parenthood affiliate filed a state court challenge to an outright abortion ban enacted in 2019 and a six-week ban that was passed that same year.
The bans violated patients' rights to privacy and self-determination under the state constitution, according to the lawsuit.
A Planned Parenthood affiliate asked the state's highest court to block the enforcement of a trigger law banning abortion that the Republican-controlled state legislature passed in 2020 that would take effect August 19.
Republican Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry said in a statement that his office was fully prepared to defend these laws in our state courts, just as we have in our federal courts. His Republican counterparts in Kentucky and Idaho, Daniel Cameron and Lawrence Wasden, did not respond to requests for comment.
The cases are among several challenging Republican-backed abortion laws under state constitutions after the US Supreme Court ruled.
A Utah branch of Planned Parenthood sued over the state's trigger ban, and abortion rights advocates plan to challenge the Ohio ban on abortion after six weeks that took effect on Friday.
A group of abortion providers in Florida went before a state court judge to argue a challenge to the state's new Republican backed ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, which they say violates Florida's constitution.