16 AGs file a brief on 4 abortion laws
Aim is blocking 2017 Arkansas edicts
Attorneys general from 15 states and Washington, D.C., have filed a brief at the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis in support of a preliminary injunction that blocks Arkansas from enforcing four laws enacted in 2017 to tighten restrictions on abortions.
On July 28, U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker granted a request from Little Rock obstetrician-gynecologist Frederick Hopkins to enjoin the state from enforcing the laws, three of which were scheduled to go into effect Aug. 1. The fourth had been scheduled to become effective Jan. 1.
Attorney General Leslie Rutledge’s office appealed the injunction to the 8th Circuit, which is reviewing the arguments on both sides.
On Thursday, Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman of New York announced that a coalition he heads of attorneys general from several states has filed an amicus, or friend-of-the-court, brief to challenge the four laws that he said “severely curtail access to abortion” in Arkansas.
A spokesman for Rutledge couldn’t be immediately reached for comment Thursday, but her office has defended the four laws, and has asked the 8th Circuit to overturn Baker’s injunction and allow the laws to take effect.
The laws are:
Act 45, which bans a common second-trimester procedure, dilation and evacuation, that abortion-rights supporters say is the safest method of abortion after 14 weeks of pregnancy but that Rutledge has deemed “particularly barbaric.”
Act 603, which requires the woman’s sexual partner or other family members to be notified of and consent to the disposal of fetal tissue after a surgical abortion.
Act 1018, which requires doctors to notify local law enforcement agencies of abortions performed on girls who are 16 or younger.
Act 733, which requires doctors to review a woman’s previous medical records if she is seeking an abortion and knows the sex of her fetus. The state has said Act 733, which was to take effect at the first of this year, was intended to ensure that a woman isn’t using abortion as a means of sex selection,
but opponents say it invades a woman’s privacy and adds an extra burden to obtaining an abortion.
“The Constitution protects a woman’s right to access safe and effective abortion services,” Schneiderman said in a news release. “Yet across the country, we’re seeing a proliferation of laws that seek to eliminate safe, medically accepted methods of abortion. We will not stand by while women’s health and constitutional rights are jeopardized by extremist laws.”
In filing the brief Thursday, Schneiderman was joined by attorneys general in California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and the District of Columbia.
The brief, which consists of more than 30 pages, opens by quoting a 1992 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Planned Parenthood of Southeast Pennsylvania v. Casey, in saying that the attorneys general “agree that ‘the ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives.’ Amici are therefore committed to advancing their interest in promoting the health and safety of all women seeking abortion services without creating unwarranted obstacles to a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy.”
They noted, “The United States Constitution requires a meaningful and evidence-based review of all abortion restrictions to ensure that the regulations do not impose an undue burden on a woman’s constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy.”
In a 140-page order, Baker said the state failed to provide evidence that the laws fulfilled the state’s interest in protecting women and minors, and honoring “respect for unborn life.” She said the injunction is to remain in place until the constitutionality of the 2017 laws can be decided in a trial.
Hopkins, who provides abortions for Little Rock Family Planning Services, the only provider of second-trimester abortions in the state, has asked Baker to impose a permanent injunction invalidating the laws.
His lawsuit was backed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas and the national Center for Reproductive Rights. The defendants are the local prosecuting attorney and members of the state Medical Board, who are required to enforce the laws.
Schneiderman said in his news release that by imposing civil and criminal penalties on doctors who perform the
standard dilation and evacuation procedure, it “would require doctors to alter the procedure by stopping the fetal heartbeat first using one or more of the following procedures: digoxin injection, potassium chloride injection, and umbilical cord transection. The federal district court determined that these three procedures are experimental and risky, difficult to perform, and potentially ineffective.”
He also wrote, “Where, as here, an abortion regulation would in effect ban safe and legal abortions, no purported benefit is sufficient to justify the burden on access.” He said the brief argues that the other three laws are “equally invalid because they fail to advance a legitimate state interest, impose substantial and unwarranted burdens on abortion access, and are impermissibly vague.”
The brief argues that the attorneys general from other states have an interest in ensuring that doctors are able to provide services that are “consistent with professional standards of care.”