BATON ROUGE -- Abortion clinics in Louisiana can continue operating while a lawsuit challenging the state's near total ban on abortions is resolved, a state judge ruled Thursday.
The preliminary injunction issued by state District Judge Donald Johnson in Baton Rouge is the latest development amid a flurry of court challenges to state "trigger" laws that were crafted in anticipation of the U.S. Supreme Court overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that established abortion rights, which it did June 24.
For weeks, access to abortion has been flickering in Louisiana where there are three clinics. A statewide abortion ban has taken effect twice and been blocked twice since the Supreme Court's ruling in June. Johnson had entered a temporary hold on enforcement July 11, pending arguments in the case that were heard Monday.
Johnson's new ruling allows clinics to continue providing abortion procedures while a lawsuit filed by a north Louisiana abortion clinic and others continues. The order gives attorneys on both sides 30 days to develop plans for a trial on whether the law should be permanently blocked.
The state could appeal his order, however. Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry has said he expects the case to wind up at the state Supreme Court.
In his reasons for the decision, Johnson said that due to the "vagueness" of the law, members of the Medical Students for Choice -- one of the plaintiffs in the case -- do not have "adequate notice if, or to what extent, they can continue to perform or assist" in abortions. Johnson said that is a violation of the members' rights to due process.
"This harm is not speculative," Johnson wrote. He added that members of Medical Students for Choice risk prosecution if they were to incorrectly apply abortion laws.
Despite the new ruling, Landry said in a statement that he looks "forward to ending this legal circus by getting the case to the State's Supreme Court as soon as possible."
The lead plaintiff in the case is a north Louisiana clinic that has continued abortion care in Shreveport under Johnson's temporary order. Clinics in Baton Rouge and New Orleans had stopped operations pending Johnson's decision on the injunction. A spokeswoman for those clinics said both were open Thursday, scheduling patients for counseling and abortions.
"With this decision, Chief Judge Johnson determined that we are likely to succeed on the merits of our lawsuit," Joanna Wright, an attorney for the clinic, said in an email. "We are prepared to prove our case and hope to obtain a final ruling that the trigger bans are unconstitutional and cannot be enforced."
NORTH CAROLINA FIGHT
North Carolina's Democratic attorney general declined Thursday to meet Republican legislative leaders' demand that he ask a federal court to lift an injunction on a state law banning nearly all abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.
The Republican leaders had asked Attorney General Josh Stein, the state's top lawyer, to return to court to reinstate the restriction -- which has been unenforceable since 2019 -- after the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning nationwide abortion protections removed the legal underpinning for the injunction.
"The Department of Justice will not take action that would restrict women's ability to make their own reproductive health care decisions," Stein said. "Protecting that ability is more important than ever, as states across the nation are banning abortions in all instances, including rape and incest."
A 2019 federal court ruling, affirmed last year by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, barred the execution of the 20-week ban based on precedents set in Roe v. Wade and an associated 1992 ruling, both struck down June 24. The ruling extended the right to an abortion in North Carolina until fetal viability, which typically falls between 24 and 28 weeks of pregnancy.
Information for this article was contributed by Kevin McGill of The Associated Press and Hannah Schoenbaum of The Associated Press/Report for America.
FILE - An operating room technician performs an ultrasound on a patient at Hope Medical Group for Women in Shreveport, La., Wednesday, July 6, 2022. Abortion clinics in Louisiana can continue operating until a lawsuit challenging the state’s near total ban on abortions is resolved, a state judge ruled Thursday, July 21, 2022. (AP Photo/Ted Jackson, File)