INDIANAPOLIS (AP)
— A federal judge has ruled against an Indiana law that changed the
classification of abortion clinics in a way that opponents said targeted a
Planned Parenthood facility that only provides drug-induced abortions.
The law violated
equal protection rights by treating the Lafayette clinic differently than
physician offices that provide the same medications, U.S. District Judge
Jane Magnus-Stinson said in a ruling released Wednesday.
Planned
Parenthood would have had to take steps, such as adding a recovery room
and scrub facilities, so that the Lafayette clinic met the same standards
as surgical abortion clinics in order to continue offering the abortion
pill under the GOP-backed law signed by Gov. Mike Pence in 2013.
The law had not
yet taken effect because Magnus-Stinson put it on hold last year after the
ACLU of Indiana filed a lawsuit on Planned Parenthood's behalf. The
judge's ruling didn't immediately void the law, with details of a
permanent injunction still to be decided.
Magnus-Stinson
wrote that the state had no rational basis for treating the Lafayette
clinic and physician offices differently.
"It results in
disparate treatment between an 'abortion clinic' and the undefined
'physician's office,' which remains statutorily authorized to perform
medication abortions without complying with the physical plant
requirements," the judge wrote.
State attorneys
argued during an October hearing that the law required the clinic to be
"minimally prepared" in case a woman who was prescribed the abortion pill
returned with emergency complications.
Magnus-Stinson
also ruled the law wrongly prohibited the state Department of Health from
waiving building requirements for abortion clinics while allowing such
waivers for hospitals and surgical centers that also perform abortions.
She directed a
magistrate judge to meet with both sides to determine what damages Planned
Parenthood might be entitled to receive before issuing a final ruling.
Indiana Attorney
General Greg Zoeller, a Republican, said in a statement Thursday that his
office was reviewing the ruling for what steps it might take next.
ACLU of Indiana
legal director Ken Falk said he believed the judge's decision was
sufficient to void the law and that he didn't know of additional arguments
the state could raise. But Indiana Right to Life president Mike Fichter
said he believed the law could be reworded by legislators "to ensure
patient safety is truly met."
Betty Cockrum,
president of Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky, said the law was
medically unnecessary and "designed to chip away at a woman's right to
access a safe, legal abortion."
The Lafayette
clinic is the only one in the state that offers only drug-induced
abortions. Eight surgical abortion clinics are currently licensed in
Indiana, including three run by Planned Parenthood, according to state
records.
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