Florida judge to temporarily block 15-week abortion ban

MIAMI — A law banning abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy violates privacy protections in the Florida Constitution, a state judge ruled Thursday, a day before the new restrictions took effect.

In a defeat for the administration of Governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican, Judge John C. Cooper of the Second Judicial Circuit Court in Tallahassee ruled from the bench to block the law, which Mr. DeSantis signed in April. Florida currently allows abortions up to 24 weeks, making the state a haven for women seeking surgery in southeastern states with tighter restrictions.

Judge Cooper said he would issue a temporary statewide injunction. It won’t be binding until he signs a written order, which he says won’t happen on Thursday.

The ban takes effect at midnight Friday and will likely be in place for a short time – perhaps a few days, due to the July 4 holiday – until the order is completed.

Judge Cooper granted the relief sought by Planned Parenthood, the Center for Reproductive Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union after a two-day hearing that laid bare the nation’s contentious abortion rights debate. The hearing began Monday, three days after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, eliminating the constitutional right to abortion that had been in place for almost 50 years. It resumed on Thursday.

The state will appeal, Mr. DeSantis’ office said in a statement after the decision. The issue will most likely end up in the Florida Supreme Court, which in the past has cited a sweeping privacy amendment that voters enshrined in the state Constitution in 1980 to prevent further restrictions from taking effect. to abortion.

But Mr. DeSantis reshaped the court after several retirements, making it much more conservative and prompting some court watchers to predict that judges could overturn precedent that extended privacy protections to abortions. Mr. DeSantis appointed three of the court’s seven judges; the other four justices were also appointed by Republican governors.

“We will appeal today’s decision and ask the Florida Supreme Court to overturn its existing precedent regarding Florida’s right to privacy,” Mr. DeSantis’ office said, returning his explicit intentions. “The struggle for life is not over.”

Judge Cooper, citing other cases involving injunctions issued by the trial court, acknowledged that the appeals court is unlikely to keep its temporary break in place for very long.

Similar legal fights are unfolding in other states, where various plaintiffs argue that their own state’s constitution provides specific protections for abortion. On Thursday, a Kentucky judge temporarily blocked an abortion ban triggered by the Supreme Court’s decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. This law, passed in 2019, called for an almost total ban on the procedure and had already led to clinics turning away patients.

As in Florida and other states, plaintiffs’ attorneys argued that the Kentucky Constitution protects the right to abortion. Ultimately, however, the legal battle in Kentucky may be short-lived. In November, voters there will consider a measure establishing that there is no constitutional right to abortion.

Also on Thursday, the Supreme Court cleared the way for Arizona to begin enforcing a state law that bans abortions based on genetic fetal conditions like Down syndrome.

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, a Republican, applauded the court’s administrative decision, which lifted an injunction and allowed the state to enforce the law against such abortions. He said in a statement that he was “proud to defend Arizona law that protects unborn children.”

But Arizona is also set to begin enforcing an even stricter abortion ban, which would ban all abortions except in cases to save a woman’s life. Mr Brnovich said on Wednesday that the total ban, which dates back more than a century, was now “back in effect” with Roe rescinded. He said his office would seek to lift a court injunction and begin enforcing it.

Florida’s law banning 15-week abortions, which includes no exception for cases of rape or incest, is similar to the Mississippi law at the heart of the Supreme Court case that overturned Roe v. Wade. In a separate case, a South Florida synagogue also challenged the 15-week ban.

Judge Cooper concluded that the ban “is unconstitutional in that it violates the privacy provision of the Florida Constitution and fails to meet the standards of the three Florida Supreme Court cases that have interpreted the effect of this constitutional provision on abortion in Florida”.

The constitutional provision states: “Every natural person has the right to be isolated and free from government intrusion into his or her privacy.” The Florida Supreme Court first ruled it extended to abortion in 1989.

This was not the first time that Judge Cooper has spoken out against the DeSantis administration. Last year, he sided with the state when he sought to ban face mask mandates in public schools.

The DeSantis administration argued that restricting abortions would protect the health of mothers, who would no longer face the increased risks of having the procedure later in pregnancy.

“They could have them sooner, which is safer,” said James H. Percival, assistant attorney general.

But plaintiffs’ attorneys countered that many women who seek an abortion after 15 weeks do so because circumstances prevent them from trying to get the procedure sooner, including learning of a fetal abnormality from tests that don’t. can be done until later in the pregnancy. Florida’s current 24-week ban aims to restrict abortions once fetuses are viable outside the womb.

“Neither interest in maternal health nor interest in fetal life can justify a ban before fetal viability,” said ACLU attorney Whitney Leigh White.

Judge Cooper repeatedly said in court that the case at issue was the state Constitution, not Roe v. Wade.

“These decisions should be made at the state level, rather than at the federal level,” he said, citing the Supreme Court ruling last week. “That’s what it’s all about, it’s interpreting a provision of the Florida Constitution.”

But much of the testimony was 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 as well as a clinic in Arizona, testified that women who seek abortions after 15 weeks often do so in the midst of a crisis.

“Women and girls who need an abortion after 15 weeks tend to have the most difficult and burdensome life circumstances,” she said, citing poverty, domestic violence and complications. of a planned pregnancy.

Testifying on behalf of the state, Dr. Ingrid Skop, senior researcher and director of medical affairs at the Charlotte Lozier Institute, an anti-abortion research organization, described abortion as “substantially more difficult and dangerous after the 15th week of gestation” and criticized the state of data collection across the country.

“We vastly underestimate the complications” of abortions, she said.

On Thursday, Judge Cooper said he found Dr Tien’s testimony more compelling and better supported by the scientific and medical literature, as well as his vast experience. Dr. Skop testified that she had never performed an abortion.

In the days following the cancellation of Roe v. Wade, Republican leaders in Florida hinted at pursuing new abortion restrictions, without specifying how far they might go.

Opinion polls have shown that, unlike some other Southern states, a majority of Floridians support keeping abortion legal.

Alexandra Glorioso and Jack Healy contributed report.