Tennessee to stop enforcing 2 abortion laws
Abortion clinic regulations similar to ones struck down as unconstitutional in Texas
NASHVILLE - Tennessee will no longer enforce two abortion clinic regulations that are similar to those struck down as unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in a Texas case in June.
The measures include a 2012 Tennessee law requiring doctors performing abortions in Tennessee to obtain admitting privileges at a local hospital and a 2014 law requiring abortion clinics providing 50 or more surgical abortions annually to meet the requirements of ambulatory surgical care centers, or ASTCs.
Both laws were challenged in federal court in 2015 by three Tennessee clinics, but the federal court in Nashville agreed to stay proceedings in the case in September, until the Supreme Court ruled on the Texas challenge to similar measures.
On Thursday Tennessee’s attorney general, state Department of Health officials and the Tennessee Board of Medical Examiners agreed to permanently stop any enforcement of the two laws “in light of the Supreme Court’s current case law and to avoid the expense and utilization of resources on continued litigation.”
The lawsuit also includes a challenge to a 2015 requirement for women obtaining an abortion to undergo a 48-hour waiting period after obtaining counseling on the procedure. The challenge to that requirement will continue to go forward in the Nashville federal court.
The admitting privileges requirement forced the closure of two Tennessee clinics whose physicians were unable to obtain those privileges. All abortion clinics in Tennessee are regulated as ambulatory surgical care centers.
The Supreme Court voted 5-3 last year in favor of Texas clinics that protested the regulations as a thinly veiled attempt to make it harder for women to get an abortion in the nation’s secondmost populous state.
Reach Anita Wadhwani at awadhwani@tennessean.com, 615-259-8092 and on Twitter @AnitaWadhwani.