Fight over abortion clinics could cost taxpayers

The attorneys who fought to keep Oklahoma abortion clinics open at the start of the pandemic want the state to pay them $548,143 in legal fees for their work.

They also want $3,198 for costs and expenses.

Abortion providers sued Gov. Kevin Stitt after he imposed an emergency ban in March on elective surgeries and minor medical procedures in the state because of the coronavirus crisis.

They filed their lawsuit in Oklahoma City federal court after the governor made clear those restrictions included most abortion services.

U.S. District Judge Charles Goodwin twice ruled mostly in favor of the abortion clinics, allowing them to reopen.

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver also found twice for them after the state challenged those rulings.

An Oklahoma City attorney on the case told the judge the abortion providers "vindicated their patients' constitutional rights."

"This case presented several novel, complex constitutional qu estions, as well as novel scientific and technical questions about abortion practice and the COVID-19 pandemic," attorney J. Blake Patton wrote in a memo.

The judge is being asked to approve payments to three attorneys with the Center for Reproductive Rights in New York, three attorneys with the Dechert LLP law firm in New York, two attorneys with Planned Parenthood Federation of America and Patton.

The attorneys want to be paid at hourly rates ranging f rom $ 450 to $260 an hour.

"This case lasted only several months, but the complexity and expedited pace of the proceedings required substantial time and resources ," the lead attorney, Travis J. Tu, told the judge.

Tu, who is with the Center for Reproductive Rights, is seeking $116,165 for himself.

"While litigating this case the Center was simultaneously challenging several other states' ban and delay of abortion through executive orders put in place to combat COVID- 19," he wrote in a declaration.