Abortions were banned immediately from conception, with the exception of a threat to the life of a pregnant woman, but no exceptions for rape or incest. Under a Louisiana law, abortion providers face a possible prison sentence of 10 or 15 years, depending on when the pregnancy was terminated. Louisiana is among a number of conservative states that have voted to restrict or ban abortions 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. Abortion rights groups, however, have sued in state courts and in some cases won temporary restraining orders to block the bans, allowing abortions to continue. In Louisiana, Orleans Parish Civil District Court Judge Ethel Julien ruled Friday that the court did not have the authority to extend a temporary restraining order issued June 27 because the case should have been filed in the state capital, Baton Rouge. Attorneys representing abortion providers in Louisiana said the decision was a temporary setback. The case is expected to go to a court in Baton Rouge, where abortion rights advocates plan to seek another stay of the abortion ban while the trial proceeds.
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Abortion providers in Louisiana had argued in the original case that the state’s enabling laws violated the state Constitution, were “void for vagueness” and did not provide enough detail about the prohibited actions — such as what exceptions existed for medical workers trying to save a pregnant woman LIFE. “The case continues, the work continues,” said Joanna Wright, one of the lead attorneys representing an abortion rights group and a Louisiana abortion clinic. “This 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 trial in Baton Rouge. “We certainly intend to continue to defend the laws of the state and enforce the laws,” Mr. Landry said. The clinic, Hope Medical Group for Women, which continued to provide abortions after the original court ruling blocked enforcement of Louisiana’s enabling laws, said it would stop performing the procedure in light of Friday’s ruling. Clinic staff members canceled abortion appointments and redirected patients to other providers, but the clinic planned to remain open to see patients for ultrasounds and “counseling options,” said Kathaleen Pittman, Hope Medical Group’s administrator. . The rapidly changing state 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. Abortion rights group judges filed lawsuits challenging the activation bans in a dozen states soon after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision that had guaranteed a constitutional right to abortion since 1973. Judges rejected those challenges in Ohio and Mississippi, but other cases, including in Oklahoma, continue. According to the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is litigating the lawsuit in Louisiana, abortion is no longer available in nine states. In Mississippi, the state’s last abortion clinic — Women’s Health of Jackson, which brought the lawsuit the Supreme Court used to overturn Roe — closed Thursday after a legal challenge failed and the state’s enabling law took effect. “We asked the Supreme Court to return abortion policymaking 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 in court and will be enforced.” An Arizona jury heard oral arguments Friday in a challenge to a state law that defines life as beginning upon arrest. The law had been suspended from challenge immediately after it was passed in 2021, but clinics in the state had stopped providing abortions after the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe, out of fear that the state law would take effect immediately and ban abortions. Most of the statewide legal challenges seek to prove that the state Constitution protects the right to abortion. In Louisiana, however, voters recently amended the Constitution to say it doesn’t guarantee that right, making the legal challenge sharper.
