MIAMI – A Florida law banning abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy violates privacy protections in the state constitution, a state judge ruled Thursday, a day before the new restrictions came into effect.
Judge John C. Cooper of the Second Judicial Circuit Court in Tallahassee ruled from the bench that the law signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in April, will not be maintained for the time being. Florida currently allows abortions up to 24 weeks, making the state a haven for women seeking the procedure from other southeastern states with stricter restrictions.
Judge Cooper said he would issue a temporary statewide injunction. It is only binding if he signs a written order, which the judge says will not happen on Thursday. The ban takes effect at midnight.
Judge Cooper granted the waiver requested by Planned Parenthood, the Center for Reproductive Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union after a two-day hearing exposed the country’s divisive debate over abortion rights. The hearing began on Monday, three days after the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade abolishes the constitutional right to abortion after nearly 50 years.
The state is expected to appeal Judge Cooper’s ruling. The issue will most likely come before the Florida Supreme Court, which has historically cited a privacy amendment that voters wrote into the state constitution in 1980 to prevent other abortion restrictions from taking effect. But Mr. DeSantis has reformed the court after several retirements and made it much more conservative. I have appointed three of the court’s seven judges. The other four judges were also appointed by Republican governors.
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Similar legal battles are playing out in other states, where several plaintiffs argue that their own state constitutions provide specific protections for abortion. On Thursday, a Kentucky judge temporarily blocked an abortion ban triggered by the Supreme Court ruling last week’s Roe v. Wade. That law, passed in 2019, called for an almost complete ban on the procedure and had already resulted in clinics rejecting patients.
As in Florida and other states, plaintiffs’ attorneys argued that the Kentucky Constitution protects the right to abortion. Ultimately, however, the lawsuit in Kentucky could be short-lived. In November, voters there will consider a measure declaring that there is no state right to abortion.
Florida’s law prohibiting abortions after 15 weeks, which contains no exceptions for rape or incest cases, is similar to the Mississippi statute at the heart of the Supreme Court’s case that Roe v. Waden.
The DeSantis administration argued that restricting abortion would protect the health of mothers, who would no longer be at increased risk of undergoing the procedure later in pregnancy.
“They could have them sooner, which is safer,” said James H. Percival, a deputy attorney general.
But plaintiffs’ attorneys objected that many women who want to have an abortion after 15 weeks do so because of difficult circumstances that prevent them from attempting the procedure sooner, including learning about a fetal abnormality through the kinds of tests that don’t happen until later in the day. the year can be performed. pregnancy. The existing 24-week ban in Florida aims to limit abortions after fetuses are viable outside the womb.
“Neither interest in maternal health nor interest in fetal life can support a ban on fetal viability,” said Whitney Leigh White, an ACLU attorney.
Judge Cooper insisted in court that the Florida issue was the state constitution. “I’m here to litigate the right to privacy in Florida,” he said Monday. “I’m not here to litigate Roe versus Wade.”
But many of the testimonials were anyway about the safety of abortion, when life begins and when a fetus can feel pain. More than 79,000 abortions were performed in Florida last year.
dr. Shelly Tien, a gynecologist who performs abortions at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Jacksonville and an Arizona clinic, testified that women who want to have an abortion after 15 weeks often do so during a crisis.
“Women and girls who need an abortion after 15 weeks generally face the most challenging and compelling living conditions,” she said, referring to poverty, domestic violence and complications of an intended pregnancy.
dr. Ingrid Skop, a senior fellow and director of medical affairs for the Charlotte Lozier Institute, an anti-abortion research organization, testified on behalf of the state, described abortion as “significantly more difficult and dangerous after the 15th week of pregnancy” and criticized the state of data collection in the whole country.
“We greatly underestimate the complications of abortion,” she said.
In another case, a synagogue in South Florida has also challenged the 15-week ban.
In the days since Roe v. Wade’s overthrow, Republican leaders in Florida have hinted at pursuing further abortion restrictions, without specifying how far they could go.
Florida “will work to expand pro-life protections,” Mr. DeSantis said in a statement Friday. I avoided questions about abortion at a public event on Monday.
Opinion polls have shown that, unlike some other Southern states, a majority of Floridians are in favor of keeping abortion legal.
Alexandra Glorious contributed reporting from Tallahassee, Fla.