After Utah Court Blocks Abortion Ban (for Now), GOP Lawmakers Try to Roll Out New One

For the time being, abortion will remain legal for up to 18 weeks in Utah. Outraged, Utah Republicans are calling for a special session to impose a six-week ban.

By Kylie Cheung | August 2, 2024 | 12:44pm

Photo: Getty Images Abortion Politics

After Utah Court Blocks Abortion Ban (for Now), GOP Lawmakers Try to Roll Out New One

On Thursday, the Utah Supreme Court delivered a rare victory for reproductive rights in the decisively red state, blocking a trigger law that would impose a total abortion ban from taking effect—at least for now. The court ruled that the Planned Parenthood Association of Utah has standing to challenge the trigger law, which blocks it until a lower court can rule on its constitutionality. That means, for the time being, abortion will remain legal through 18 weeks—not ideal, but certainly better than a total ban that only allows exceptions for fatal fetal anomalies or when the pregnant person’s life is imminently at risk.

While Kathryn Boyd, president and CEO of the Planned Parenthood Association of Utah, celebrated the ruling as a “win,” she acknowledged that “the fight is not over.” The same day the court temporarily blocked the ban, outraged Utah Republicans moved to call for a special session to try to roll out a six-week abortion ban.

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Utah state Sen. Dan McCay (R) is leading the push for the special session. He told reporters on Thursday that he’s sent his request to legislative leaders and the state’s Republican governor, Spencer Cox. McCay pointed to six-week bans in Iowa, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, and stressed that such a ban should be able to take effect in his state.

To be clear, while the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2022 that there’s no right to abortion in the federal Constitution, state Constitutions vary across the board. That means state courts will come to different conclusions and interpret their state Constitutions in different ways. Like Utah, Wyoming has a trigger law that would impose a total abortion ban, which is also temporarily blocked while a state court considers and interprets whether the state’s Constitution protects a right to abortion. In June, Iowa’s state Supreme Court determined that the state’s six-week abortion ban is constitutional, allowing the ban to take effect this week. And in April, Arizona’s Supreme Court ruled that a pre-Civil War abortion ban from 1864 could take effect, though legislators swiftly took action to repeal it.

That is to say, McCay’s examples of states that have imposed six-week bans don’t hold a lot of water in Utah.

Cox and other Utah Republicans similarly criticized the state court’s ruling on Thursday, with Cox expressing disappointment with another delay in the law taking effect. Senate President Stuart Adams and House Speaker Mike Schultz, both Republicans, said the court is undermining the legislature’s authority. Republican Rep. Karianne Lisonbee bemoaned “the deaths of thousands of unborn babies in our state,” in an eye-roll-inducing reference to embryos. Still, Republican leaders have yet to officially bring forth a special session.

If the legislature did convene to introduce a six-week ban, Axios notes this would likely meet the same fate as the trigger law, as well as a 2023 law that tried to block abortion clinics from operating—both are currently blocked in court. While the state Supreme Court’s ruling is temporary, it’s encouraging, as it affirms a Utah judge’s 2022 ruling that the ban should be paused (pending Planned Parenthood’s ongoing lawsuit) because the implications for and potential harm to patients are particularly serious. For a law to be paused amid ongoing litigation, plaintiffs must show that the law in question would irreparably harm people and that it’s against the public interest.

The Utah Supreme Court’s ruling comes about one year after one female judge on the court’s first-ever female majority reminded anti-abortion lawyers for the state that no women took part in writing the state’s 1895 Constitution. The ruling is a relief amid an already severely fractured abortion access landscape. Fourteen states currently enforce total abortion bans, along with four that enforce six-week abortion bans. The most recent data published in June showed over 170,000 people traveled out-of-state to receive clinical abortion care in 2023, the first full year after the Supreme Court killed Roe.

In a statement shared with Jezebel, Rep. Angela Romero (D), Utah House Minority Leader, called Thursday’s ruling “a crucial victory for health care access in our state.”

“As the lower courts review the case, and as our Republican colleagues continue to attack reproductive care, the Utah House Democratic Caucus will persist in advocating for policies that protect the health and rights of all our constituents,” Romero said.