Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Attorney general’s office seeks stay on abortion-law order

- LINDA SATTER

The Arkansas attorney general’s office has asked U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker to suspend her July 2 order allowing medication-induced abortions in Arkansas to continue, while the order is on appeal.

But Planned Parenthood, whose lawsuit led to the preliminar­y injunction, argued Monday that the order should remain in place because it “maintains the status quo as it has been for the past 10 years.”

Baker issued a 148-page order on July 2 that prevents the state from enforcing a contracted-physician requiremen­t in a 2015 state law until the law’s constituti­onality is decided.

It was the second time she had issued a preliminar­y injunction in response to a lawsuit Planned Parenthood filed in late 2015 to challenge the requiremen­t, which the abortion provider says is impossible to meet and effectivel­y stops all such abortions statewide.

Planned Parenthood provides only pill-induced abortions at its two clinics — one each in Little Rock and Fayettevil­le — and Little Rock Family Planning Services provides both pill-induced and surgical abortions.

After Baker’s first injunction was issued in 2016, the state appealed to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis, which dissolved the injunction and ordered Baker to conduct a more thorough hearing to determine precisely how the requiremen­t would affect Arkansas women seeking medication-induced abortions. The 8th Circuit specifical­ly directed Baker to determine whether a “large fraction” of such women would be unduly burdened by the law.

Baker’s second injunction detailed how she determined that the law would unduly burden a “large fraction” of abortion-seeking women, and was to remain in place at least until a trial tentativel­y scheduled for early next year.

The contracted-physician requiremen­t of Act 577 of 2015 creates criminal and civil penalties for any doctor who performs a medication-induced abortion in Arkansas without first obtaining a signed contract with a second obstetrici­an with hospital admitting privileges who agrees to handle any complicati­ons that arise after the patient leaves the clinic.

Medication-induced abortions are a two-step process, with one pill being administer­ed by a doctor and the second taken by the woman 48 hours later at home.

The state contends the contracted-physician requiremen­t is a means of protecting women in the event of complicati­ons and ensuring continuity of care. Planned Parenthood contends complicati­ons are rare and don’t require hospitaliz­ation.

In issuing her second injunction, Baker “carefully considered the extensive evidence before it, consisting of both written declaratio­ns and live witness testimony, and made the findings mandated by the Eighth Circuit’s prior decision in this case,” attorneys for Planned Parenthood argued Monday. They said the state’s arguments for a stay “merely rehash issues already considered and disposed of by this Court, consistent with Eighth Circuit and Supreme Court precedent.”

The state has asked Baker to decide whether to issue a stay by 5 p.m. Thursday. On July 10, she ordered Planned Parenthood to respond by day’s end Monday, and said a decision will follow.

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