NEW ORLEANS (AP) – The Fall of Roe v. Wade on Monday shifted the battlefield over abortion to courts across the country as enemies of abortion sought to quickly enact state-wide bans and the other side sought to gain more time.
The U.S. Supreme Court decision on Friday to end constitutional protections for abortion opened the door to a wave of litigation from all parties.
Many of the court cases will focus on “activating laws,” passed in 13 states in anticipation of the ruling and designed to go into effect quickly. The lawsuits could also go to old anti-abortion laws that did not apply under Roe, and cases about restrictions on abortion that were suspended pending the Supreme Court ruling have also begun to return. to play.
“We will be back in court tomorrow and the next day and the next day,” Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said Friday, arguing the case that led to the Supreme Court ruling in a video call . .
On Monday, abortion rights advocates asked a Florida judge to block a new state law, which bans abortion after 15 weeks with a few exceptions, and will go into effect this week. Lawyers hoping to avoid the abortion ban in Louisiana filed a lawsuit arguing that state laws are unclear when a ban may go into effect and what constitutes an exception.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona and an abortion rights group filed an emergency motion Saturday to block a 2021 law that worries it could be used to stop all abortions. The Utah Planned Parenthood Association has already challenged an active law with reduced exceptions.
Brigitte Amiri, deputy director of the Reproductive Freedom Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the organization is looking for “all options” to protect access to abortion. As of Saturday, abortion services had been stopped in at least 11 states, either by state laws or by confusion.
But in some cases, the demands can only be a play of time. Even if the courts block some prohibitions or restrictions on abortion, lawmakers in many conservative states could act quickly to address the aforementioned flaws.
This is likely to be the case in Louisiana. Republican Attorney General Jeff Landry took to Twitter on Friday to say the bans with “detonating” provisions passed in anticipation of the sentence were in effect immediately. The only three abortion clinics in the state closed that day.
Plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed Monday in New Orleans state court, including one of those clinics, do not deny that Louisiana can now ban abortion. Instead, they claim that current laws are confusing and unconstitutionally vague, according to the legal writ.
Days before Friday’s Supreme Court ruling, Gov. John Bel Edwards, an anti-abortion Democrat, signed a bill into law that supporters said would clarify and eliminate any conflict in anti-abortion laws already in the state statutes. The bill includes prison sentences of up to 10 years for any doctor who performs an abortion.
Like other anti-abortion statutes that already appear in the books, it contained a triggering language that said it would take effect if Roe were annulled. The lawsuit argued that it left multiple conflicting activation mechanisms in state law.
Lawyers behind the lawsuit also alleged that state law was still unclear about whether to ban abortion before the implantation of a fertilized egg into the uterus. And while the new law provided for an exception for “medically useless” pregnancies (in cases of fetuses with fatal abnormalities), the plaintiffs noted that the law gave no definition for the term, leaving it to the health department of the state to develop it.
This makes it impossible for doctors to know what is and what is not prohibited by law, said Joanna Wright, one of the attorneys who filed the Louisiana lawsuit.
Challenges to other triggering laws could be raised because the conditions for imposing bans have not been met, or it was inappropriate for a past legislature to link the current one to a new law. Laura Herner, a professor at the Mitchell Hamline School of Law in St. Louis. Paul, Minnesota, said prohibitions or restrictions on triggering could also be challenged with arguments for equal protection.
He said other challenges could call into question whether the laws allow for sufficient and clear exceptions to protect the life or health of a pregnant woman.
Recently written bans will also face challenges. Instead of relying on constitutional protection at the federal level, proponents of the right to abortion will argue that state constitutions guarantee the right to abortion.
A judge heard arguments on the issue Monday in Florida, where lawyers called for an emergency order to prevent a new law from going into effect Friday. The ban beyond 15 weeks has exceptions to save the life of the pregnant woman or prevent physical harm or in cases where the fetus has a fatal abnormality. The Florida ACLU has argued that it violates the state constitution.
Still other cases could be filed as states try to find out whether abortion bans in place before Roe was decided, sometimes called “zombie laws,” now apply that there is no federal protection for abortion. .
For example, Wisconsin passed a law in 1849 that prohibited abortion except to save the mother’s life. Attorney General Josh Kaul, a Democrat, said he doesn’t think it’s enforceable. Pro-Life Wisconsin and other opponents of abortion have called on lawmakers to impose a new ban.
Meanwhile, Wisconsin’s Planned Parenthood said it immediately suspended all abortions, though district prosecutors in counties that include Madison and Milwaukee have suggested they would not enforce the ban.
In Michigan, Planned Parenthood was proactive, challenging the 1931 abortion ban before the Supreme Court ruling. In May, a judge said the ban could not be enforced because it violated the state’s constitution. Proponents of abortion rights are now trying to get a proposal for a state constitutional amendment to the November vote to explain that people can make their own decisions about abortion and birth control.
Advocates and experts also hope to see legal fights over state efforts to initiate legal action against people who cross state borders to seek abortions or to protect people from such actions.
Idaho, Oklahoma and Texas have passed laws that allow people to seek rewards against those who help others abort. There is a question as to whether this means that people can be persecuted across state lines, and some states acted to prevent this.
For example, the Democratic-controlled California legislature passed a bill Thursday to protect abortion providers and volunteers in the state from civilian sentences imposed by other states. In liberal Massachusetts, Republican Gov. Charlie Baker on Friday signed an executive order banning state agencies from aiding other states’ investigations into anyone receiving or providing legal reproductive health services in Massachusetts.
“It will be very confusing and it will have a lot of moving parts and really the patients will be the ones to bear the weight of this. There will be a lot of confusion about where people can access abortion,” said Amiri, of the ACLU.
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Forliti reported from Minneapolis and Mulvihill of Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Associated Press writers Anthony Izaguirre in Tallahassee, Florida; Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin; Kate Brumback in Atlanta; Steve LeBlanc in Boston and Don Thompson in Sacramento, California, contributed to this report.
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For full AP coverage of the Supreme Court ruling on abortion, go to