SOUTH BEND, Ind.
(AP) - A federal judge has rejected an attempt by Indiana’s attorney general
to prevent what would become the state’s seventh abortion clinic from
opening in northern Indiana.
U.S. District Judge
Sarah Evans Barker on Friday denied Attorney General Curtis Hill’s request
for an immediate stay to prevent the South Bend clinic - which would perform
medication-induced abortions for women who are up to 10 weeks pregnant -
from opening until Indiana’s appeal is considered, the South Bend Tribune
reported.
Barker granted an
injunction on May 31 allowing the Texas-based Whole Woman’s Health Alliance
to open the clinic without a state-required license, pending a final ruling
in a federal lawsuit on the clinic’s license that’s set for trial before her
in August 2020.
Hill’s office
appealed to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago and sought a
stay to prevent the clinic from opening before the appeal is heard.
Barker said in her
ruling Friday that she issued the injunction “on the prospect that the South
Bend Clinic could and will be regulated by the state, in light of the
history of abortion regulation in Indiana and of the existing statutory and
regulatory framework.
“Moreover, every
single day, Indiana permits licensed physicians ‘to dispense powerful
hormone-curbing, abortion-inducing, uterus-contracting prescription drugs’
in unlicensed facilities - so long as those drugs are dispensed to women not
seeking abortions,” she wrote.
Barker, who was
nominated as a judge by President Ronald Reagan, is also weighing whether to
block an Indiana law set to take effect July 1 that would largely ban a
second-trimester abortion procedure.
Hill said in a
statement Monday that Barker’s ruling “declared that something as ordinary
and fundamental as state licensing - which the state does for everything
from nursing homes to daycares - can be invalidated in the name of the right
to abortion.”
“This ruling turns
the right to abortion into a cudgel against state licensing laws that the
Supreme Court long ago declared to be perfectly valid,” he said.
Whole Woman’s
Health Alliance first applied for a state license in October 2017, but the
State Department of Health denied its license application in early 2018.
State officials have said the alliance hasn’t provided requested safety
documentation.
An administrative
law judge recommended that the denial be reversed in a review of Whole
Woman’s Health Alliance’s license request, but ultimately a second license
application was denied.
A spokeswoman for
the nonprofit said last week that it plans to open the clinic in “the coming
weeks.”
The state has
three abortion clinics in Indianapolis, one in
Bloomington, one in Lafayette and one in Merrillville.