Lawsuit seeks to block Tennessee drug-induced-abortion reversal law

NASHVILLE — Abortion rights groups on Monday filed a lawsuit challenging a newly enacted Tennessee law that would require women undergoing drug-induced abortions be informed the procedure can be reversed.

The complaint is the second legal battle targeting a sweeping antiabortion measure Republican

Gov. Bill Lee signed off on earlier this year.

The law focuses mainly on banning abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detected — about six weeks into pregnancy, before many women know they’re pregnant. That portion was challenged just hours after the GOP-dominated Statehouse advanced the bill during the final hours of the annual legislative session.

However, also tucked in the 38-page law is a requirement that doctors must inform women that drug-induced abortions may be halted halfway. Medical groups say the claim isn’t backed up by science and there is little information about the reversal procedure’s safety

Those who fail to comply with the law — which doesn’t go into effect until Oct. 1 — will face a Class E felony, punishable by up to six years in prison. The lawsuit filed Monday

seeks to prevent that requirement from being implemented.

A federal judge in North Dakota blocked a similar law last year.

“This medically unsound and factually inaccurate requirement is part of the coordinated war on truth and has no basis in science,” Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement.