Abortions are resuming in Indiana after an Indiana judge blocked the state’s abortion ban from being enforced on Thursday. Immediately afterward, phones started ringing across Indiana abortion clinics, which are preparing to resume the procedure a week after the ban had gone into effect.
Last week, Indiana’s near-total abortion ban went into effect. It outlawed all abortions from the moment of conception. The ban held narrow exceptions only for rape and incest before 10 weeks, lethal fetal anomalies before 20 weeks, and medical emergencies.
Under the ban, doctors performing illegal abortions could lose their medical licenses.
It was the first state to enact tighter abortion restrictions since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Indiana’s seven abortion clinics were to lose their state licenses under the ba.
Abortion providers sued the state, arguing it violated the state constitution.
Now, a little over a week after the ban went into effect, a judge has issued a temporary pause on the new law while the lawsuit makes its way through the courts.
It means that abortions are back to being legal in the state, for now.
Indiana women can get the procedure up to 22 weeks after their last period. And abortion clinics in the state can remain open.
In the ruling, the judge said there is a “reasonable likelihood” that the state constitution includes the right to liberty and personal autonomy.
Indiana’s ban followed the political firestorm over a 10-year-old rape victim who traveled to the state from neighboring Ohio to end her pregnancy. The case gained widespread national and international attention when an Indianapolis doctor said the child came to Indiana because of Ohio’s “fetal heartbeat” ban.
With Indiana now on hold, bans on abortion at any point in pregnancy are in place in 12 Republican-led states.
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