11:47 A.M. UPDATE
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — The Indiana Supreme Court ruled Friday that the state’s abortion ban doesn’t violate the state constitution, removing a major hurdle to enforcing the ban Republicans approved last summer.
The court’s decision overturns a county judge’s ruling that the ban likely violates the state constitution’s privacy protections, which she said are stronger than those found in the U.S. Constitution. That judge’s order has allowed abortions to continue in Indiana since September, despite the ban.
An opinion from three of the court’s five justices said that while Indiana’s constitution provides some protection of abortion rights, the “General Assembly otherwise retains broad legislative discretion for determining whether and the extent to which to prohibit abortions.”
All five Indiana Supreme Court justices were appointed by Republican governors.
Although the court’s decision strikes down the injunction blocking the ban, it wasn’t immediately clear how soon the ban would take effect. The justices returned the case to the county judge for further action.
Indiana’s abortion ban also faces a separate court challenge over claims it violates the state’s 2015 religious freedom law signed by GOP then-Gov. Mike Pence.
Indiana became the first state to enact tighter abortion restrictions, acting in August, after the U.S. Supreme Court’s eliminated federal protections by overturning Roe v. Wade in June 2022.
Most Republican-controlled states have enacted tighter abortion restrictions since U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling last summer. All the restrictions have been challenged in court.
In the past year, judges in Arizona, Iowa and South Carolina have ruled that the bans are not permissible under the state constitutions.
Besides Indiana, enforcement of restrictions are on hold as courts decide the cases in Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Utah and Wyoming. In North Dakota, lawmakers adopted a different ban since to replace the one that was blocked. In South Carolina, another ban has been put into place and put on hold by a court. And in North Carolina, a federal judge weighed whether to temporarily block parts of new abortion restrictions set to take effect Saturday.
Democratic-led states, such as Indiana’s neighbors of Illinois and Michigan, have mostly taken steps to protect abortion access.
The Indiana ban would eliminate the licenses for all seven abortion clinics in the state and ban the vast majority of abortions even in the earliest stages of a pregnancy. It includes exceptions allowing abortions at hospitals in cases of rape or incest before 10 weeks post-fertilization; to protect the life and physical health of the mother; and if a fetus is diagnosed with a lethal anomaly.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, which represented Planned Parenthood and other abortion clinic operators, argued before the Supreme Court in January that the state constitution’s liberty protections provide a right to privacy and to make decisions on whether to have children.
The state attorney general’s office countered that Indiana had laws against abortion when its current constitution was drafted in 1851 and that the county judge’s ruling would wrongly create an abortion right.
A separate court challenge to the ban is ongoing as another county judge in December sided with residents who claim it violates the state’s religious freedom law, which Republican legislators pushed through in 2015 and sparked a widespread national backlash as critics argued it allowed discrimination against gay people.
The state Supreme Court in January turned down a request from the attorney general’s office that it immediately take up the religious freedom lawsuit. The state’s intermediate Court of Appeals is scheduled to hear arguments over that lawsuit on Sept. 12.
Marion County Judge Heather Welch in December agreed with five residents who hold Jewish, Muslim and spiritual faiths and who argued that the ban would violate their religious rights on when they believe abortion is acceptable. For now it only directly affects those plaintiffs — legal experts say anyone else claiming religious protections of their abortion rights would need their own court order.
10:45 A.M.
By Dave Stafford
The Republic
INDIANAPOLIS — The Indiana Supreme Court on Friday vacated an injunction that had temporarily blocked a new state law that largely bans abortion. However, the five justices declined to directly uphold the law, remanding the matter for further proceedings in the Monroe Circuit Court in Bloomington.
The state appealed an injunction by Special Judge Kelsey Hanlon, who issued an order that blocked Indiana’s abortion restrictions that were signed into law last year by Gov. Eric Holcomb shortly after the US Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision overturned the federal right to abortion.
On Friday, the Indiana Supreme Court vacated that decision, which had said that the abortion restrictions adopted last year in Senate Bill 1 likely violated the individual liberty guarantee found in Article 1, Section 1 Indiana Constitution. The injunction was issued in a challenge to the law brought by Planned Parenthood, abortion providers, and the Indiana Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, among others.
“Plaintiffs, which are mostly abortion providers, have standing to challenge Senate Bill 1 because the law criminalizes their work and the injunction they seek would protect them from the law’s criminal and regulatory penalties. Additionally, Article 1, Section 1, which is judicially enforceable, protects a woman’s right to an abortion that is necessary to protect her life or to protect her from a serious health risk,” the majority opinion written by Justice Derek Molter and joined by Chief Justice Loretta Rush and Justice Mark Massa states.
“But Section 1 generally permits the General Assembly to prohibit abortions which are unnecessary to protect a woman’s life or health, so long as the legislation complies with the constitutional limits that apply to all legislation, such as those limiting legislation to a proper exercise of the police power and providing privileges and immunities equally. Because the State can enforce Senate Bill 1 within those constitutional parameters, Plaintiffs have failed to show a reasonable likelihood of success on the merits of their facial challenge. We thus vacate the preliminary injunction and remand for proceedings consistent with this opinion,” the majority opinion concluded.
Read more in Saturday’s edition of The Republic.
10:40 AM UPDATE
INDIANAPOLIS — The Indiana Democratic Party released the following statement from IDP Chairman Mike Schmuhl today after the Indiana Supreme Court ruled in favor of Indiana Republicans’ near-total ban on abortion:
“Today is the latest in a line of sad days for the rights of Hoosier women. Over three million women in our state have lost the fundamental right to make decisions about their own bodies and health. Polls have consistently shown that a majority of Hoosiers believe women should have the right to choose.
The unbalanced supermajority of Republicans in the statehouse are responsible for the consequences that this law will cause. Multitudes of Hoosier women every year will be forced to travel hundreds of extra miles to other states to receive healthcare. The few exceptions provided are likely only exceptions on paper, as bans in other states have shown. Many women will be forced to carry unsafe pregnancies to term because they don’t have the resources to travel, or will be denied care (despite meeting an exception) because of the risk to hospitals facing legal action.
This decision will not stop the resolve of Hoosier Democrats to restore full reproductive rights for all women in Indiana. In the coming months and years, Democratic legislators will continue proposals to reverse this ban, work to expand access to contraceptives, and fight against Republican attempts to criminalize doctors and women. We stand united with the majority of Hoosiers who want all women in our state to have equal rights — and the right to choose.”
ORIGINAL STORY
From The Republic’s newsgathering partner, WISH TV
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The Indiana Supreme Court on Friday ruled to lift an order blocking the state’s near-total ban on abortion.
The court overturned a preliminary injunction against the abortion ban on privacy grounds, meaning the ban would be able to go into effect while the lawsuit proceeds.
A separate injunction blocking the ban on religious liberty grounds remains in effect, thus the near-total ban on abortion is still not enforceable.
A Marion County judge in September agreed to block Indiana’s new abortion ban on grounds it violated the state constitution’s provisions guaranteeing a right to privacy.
The state immediately appealed the ruling and the Indiana Supreme Court agreed to take jurisdiction.
During arguments before the court in January, the ACLU’s Ken Falk argued that previous state supreme court rulings have relied at least in part on Article 1, Section 1 to provide for the expansion of certain rights. Solicitor General Tom Fisher told the court a ruling upholding the injunction would mean there is no limit to what Article 1, Section 1 protected.
The injunction is separate from the underlying lawsuit against the ban, which has yet to go to trial. Additionally, a Marion County judge in December issued an injunction against the abortion ban in a separate lawsuit that challenges the ban on grounds of religious liberty.
For more on this story, see Saturday’s Republic.
