Abortion providers are asking an Indiana judge this week to expand access to abortions under the state’s near-total ban.
Indiana law allows abortion in rare circumstances, including when the woman’s health or life is at risk, but only in a hospital.
Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers are asking a Monroe County judge for a preliminary injunction to expand medical exemptions and block the hospital-only requirement. The trial of Special Judge Kelsey Blake Hanlon is scheduled for Wednesday through Friday.
The Indiana Supreme Court confirmed the ban in Juneending a broader legal challenge from the same plaintiffs, but said the state constitution protects a woman’s right to an abortion when her life or health is in danger.
Prosecutors say the exceptions to the health protection ban are so narrowly defined that in practice, many doctors will not terminate a pregnancy even if a woman’s condition qualifies under the law.
According to the complaint, the ban does not take into account conditions that could threaten health later in pregnancy, after childbirth, or conditions that could aggravate other health problems. The health and life exception allows an abortion up to 20 weeks into pregnancy.
The plaintiffs also want women to be able to have abortions if medically indicated for psychological reasons. The current statute explicitly excludes the threat of self-harm or suicide as a “serious health risk,” which is another reason why plaintiffs say the state’s definition is unconstitutional.
“The uncertainty caused by the Health or Life Exception’s confusing definition of serious health risk and the threat of fines and criminal prosecution is preventing Indiana physicians from performing abortions necessary to protect the lives and health of their patients. protect,” the complaint states.
Only a few hospitals, largely in the Indianapolis area, offer abortions and usually at a higher cost than clinics, the complaint said. Doctors who prescribe drugs must observe the woman taking the pills, delaying abortions for patients who don’t live nearby.
The state has called the providers’ claims in the lawsuits “vague and ambiguous” and denied that Indiana is infringing on legal rights.
The challenge was filed in politically liberal Monroe County, home to the main campus of Indiana University, but Democratic judges handed over the case until it went to Hanlon, a Republican who was elected in a neighboring conservative county.
Indiana became the first state to enact stricter abortion restrictions after the U.S. Supreme Court ended federal abortion protections in June 2022 by overturning Roe v. Wade. State law also allows exceptions for rape, incest and fatal fetal abnormalities under limited circumstances.
Since the ban came into effectthe number of abortions in the state has fallen dramatically. According to the latest report from the state health department, 46 abortions were reported in the last three months of 2023, up from 1,724 in the last quarter of 2022.
A separate legal challenge seeks to create a religious exception to Indiana’s abortion ban. The attorney general asked the Indiana Supreme Court last week to take up the case after an appeals court in April sided with four residents and the group Hoosier Jews for Choice.
