SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Utah choose on Friday will take into account a request from Planned Parenthood to delay implementing a statewide ban on abortion clinics set to start taking impact subsequent week.
Planned Parenthood argues a state regulation handed earlier this yr will successfully finish entry to abortion all through the state when clinics subsequent week cease with the ability to apply for the licenses they’ve traditionally relied on to function.
The group operates three of Utah’s 4 clinics that present abortions. It argues that, with the clinic ban, the Utah Legislature “sought an alternative means” to additional prohibit abortions whereas awaiting a state Supreme Court ruling on a “trigger law” that will outlaw most abortions no matter trimester.
“Women will be forced to carry pregnancies to term against their will; to remain pregnant until they can travel out of state to access this critical, time-sensitive medical care … or to attempt to self-manage their abortions outside the medical system,” Planned Parenthood mentioned in its movement requesting the court docket delay implementing the clinic ban earlier this month.
The ban on clinics is Utah lawmakers’ newest effort to limit abortions and comes lower than a yr after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. That determination triggered two beforehand handed legal guidelines – a 2019 ban on abortion after 18 weeks and a 2020 ban on abortions no matter trimester, with a number of exceptions together with situations of threat to maternal well being in addition to rape or incest reported to the police.
The state Planned Parenthood affiliate sued over the 2020 ban. Last July, a choose delayed implementing it till authorized challenges may very well be resolved. The 18-week ban has since been de facto regulation.
If the clinic ban takes impact, the delicensing of clinics will transition most abortions to hospitals, which typically don’t focus on low-cost outpatient abortions, together with offering the abortion capsule. In Utah, clinics present 95% of abortions.
The regulation is ready to take impact May 3, at which period abortion clinics will not be capable to apply to be licensed. It would institute a full ban on Jan. 1, 2024, by stripping all clinics of their licenses.
Though state officers have mentioned clinic licenses will stay till then, Planned Parenthood has warned that it reads the regulation in another way and fears exposing clinicians to authorized legal responsibility and make offering abortions a criminal offense. They have mentioned that, absent intervention, they plan to cease offering abortions at their clinics.
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