Planned Parenthood to Ask U.S. Supreme Court to Throw Out Pro-Life Ruling

This week Planned Parenthood indicated it will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a lower court’s ruling in favor of a pro-life law Arkansas passed in 2015.

More than two years ago the Arkansas Legislature passed the Abortion-Inducing Drugs Safety Act. This law requires abortion providers to follow FDA protocols when dispensing abortion drugs and maintain an agreement with a physician who has admitting privileges at a hospital.

The legal battle over the Abortion-Inducing Drugs Safety Act has been long and drawn-out.

Planned Parenthood sued the state over the law late in 2015. A lower court blocked the law from enforcement early last year.

Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge appealed to the federal Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. Last July a panel of judges from the Eighth Circuit ruled in favor of the law.

Planned Parenthood subsequently asked the entire Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals to revisit the issue, but the circuit judges declined to do so.

Now Planned Parenthood has filed a motion with the Eighth Circuit asking the court to block enforcement of the Abortion-Inducing Drugs Safety Act while attorneys appeal the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Planned Parenthood says it won’t be able to do abortions if this law stands, because its clinics have been unable to find a doctor with hospital admitting privileges who will contract with them.

So far its attorneys are asking the Eighth Circuit to block enforcement of the Abortion-Inducing Drugs Safety Act so Planned Parenthood can keep doing abortions in Arkansas while it makes its appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In my opinion, this is a long shot for Planned Parenthood. The Abortion-Inducing Drugs Safety Act is a good law that ought to be enforced. The Arkansas Legislature passed it with strong support, and Attorney General Rutledge’s office has defended it in court since Day One. We look forward to other pro-life victories in the future.

Photo Credit: By Brian Turner (Flickr: My Trusty Gavel) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

Related posts: