A March 2 hearing was scheduled Monday on Planned Parenthood's request for a preliminary injunction to stop the enforcement of a new Arkansas law limiting the way the abortion pill is administered.
The hearing, scheduled to begin at 9 a.m., may last several days, U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker said in her order. Meanwhile, a temporary restraining order prohibiting the law from being enforced remains in effect until March 14, at the request of attorneys for both Planned Parenthood and Arkansas.
The new law, which was set to take effect Jan. 1, requires abortion pill providers in the state to follow U.S. Food and Drug Administration guidelines for administering the drugs, and requires doctors providing the pills to maintain a contract with another doctor who has admitting privileges at a hospital.
Planned Parenthood Arkansas and Eastern Oklahoma, doing business as Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, contends that the requirements impose burdens that are designed to effectively prevent abortions in Arkansas. They say the FDA protocol is outdated and the doctor requirements are nearly impossible to meet.
The state contends the law was enacted to protect women from potential complications from taking the abortion pill. The Planned Parenthood clinics in Little Rock and Fayetteville have performed only medication abortions and not surgical abortions, and the only clinic in the state that offers surgical abortions has agreed to cease providing medication abortions in light of the new law.
On Monday, Baker also granted most of Planned Parenthood's request to turn over its private documents to attorneys for the state under a protective order, to keep them from becoming public. The documents are being sought as part of the discovery process that precedes a hearing on the merits of the lawsuit, which alleges that the new law, Act 577 of 2015, would impair the health and safety of women seeking abortions in Arkansas and violate their constitutional rights.
Attorneys for the state opposed the request, which sought to protect the identities of Planned Parenthood staff, including prospective and past physicians, as well as physicians that Planned Parenthood contacted in efforts to try to fulfill the contracted-physician requirement of the new law -- which is also known as the Abortion-Inducing Drugs Safety Act.
The request for the protective order also asked that it cover Planned Parenthood's proprietary business information.
Baker wrote, "There is evidence in the record ... that physicians who provide abortions or associate with abortion providers are subject to personal and professional stigma and that they fear for their personal safety and that of their families." She said that in the case of the physicians that Planned Parenthood identified as potentially willing to contract with the organization, "these third party witnesses did not seek to be involved in this lawsuit," and there is good cause to include them under a "highly confidential" designation.
"If any of these third party witnesses wish to make their identities known publicly, nothing in this ... protective order prevents them from doing so," Baker said, noting that the order protects their privacy and safety "if they do not wish to be subject to the fear of stigma and harassment from being associated with an abortion provider, if they do not wish to expose employers or partners who do not want to be associated with an abortion provider, or if they do not wish to be publicly known as not supporting a woman's right to choose."
Baker noted that the entry of a protective order to cover business and proprietary information "resolves a practical problem that arises frequently in litigation." She noted that the order permits either party to challenge the other party's secrecy designation.
Metro on 02/02/2016