INDIANAPOLIS – The Indiana Supreme Court on Monday denied a request to rehear its ruling upholding the state’s near-total abortion ban.
That means the new law, which prohibits the procedure with only narrow exceptions, immediately takes effect once the ruling is certified on the court docket. That should happen in a matter of days, according to court officials.
In a split, 4-1 decision, high court justices reaffirmed in their order that Planned Parenthood and other health care providers “cannot show a reasonable likelihood of success” with their challenge to the abortion restrictions because there are cases in which the ban could be constitutionally enforced.
Chief Justice Loretta H. Rush, who concurred with the ruling, reiterated in her own opinion that Indiana’s Constitution grants a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy “to protect her life or to protect her from a serious health risk … under circumstances that extend beyond the current law.”
“Given that possibility, I am deeply concerned about Senate Bill 1’s impact on Hoosier women’s constitutional right to seek medical care that is necessary to protect their life or to protect them from a serious health risk. And I am likewise concerned about the law’s impact on healthcare providers who must determine whether to provide that care and potentially expose themselves to criminal penalties and professional sanctions,” Rush wrote in her opinion. “But Plaintiffs have not properly put these concerns before us.”
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