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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowAbortion providers and a pregnancy resource center sought a preliminary injunction Thursday to broaden the scope of a health or life exception to Indiana’s near-total abortion ban and to expand the sites where the procedures can be performed.
The ban outlaws abortion even in cases presenting a serious health risk and threatens providers with criminal and licensing penalties for providing care in such circumstances, the plaintiffs argued in an amended complaint filed in Monroe County, south of Indianapolis.
The plaintiffs seek to expand the medical exception to the law and block its requirement that any abortions that do occur be provided at a hospital. That requirement makes abortion even more inaccessible because only a few hospitals, concentrated in the Indianapolis area, provide abortions and typically do so at higher costs than at abortion clinics, the plaintiffs argue.
The plaintiffs include the Planned Parenthood Federation of America; Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawaii, Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky; another past abortion provider, Women’s Med; and the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana.
The plaintiffs said in a statement “the fight isn’t over in Indiana. Today, we are asking the trial court to protect Hoosiers’ health and limit the scope of the state’s unconstitutional abortion ban.”
An email message seeking comment was sent to the Indiana Attorney General’s Office, which defends Indiana laws in legal matters.
The health and life exception to Indiana’s abortion law states that an abortion can be provided if “a condition exists that has complicated the mother’s medical condition and necessitates an abortion to prevent death or a serious risk of substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function.”
Indiana’s ban went into effect in August following the Indiana Supreme Court’s ruling vacating a previously issued preliminary injunction and holding that the Indiana Constitution includes a right to an abortion that is necessary to protect a patient from a serious health risk.
Indiana’s Republican-backed ban ended most abortions in the state, even in the earliest stages of a pregnancy. Indiana became the first state to enact tighter abortion restrictions after the U.S. Supreme Court ended nearly a half-century of federal abortion protections by overturning Roe v. Wade in June 2022.
Indiana’s six abortion clinics stopped providing abortions ahead of the ban officially taking effect.
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Yuk to Indiana and the legislator who sponsored this bill. Clearly most favor choice. No one — repeat — no one was forced to have an abortion. Let Hoosiers vote! Better yet, let them vote by county.
Certainly, enacting restrictions makes sense — but fewer than six weeks is ridiculous whereas more than 20 weeks is unreasonable.
Now abortion moves back into the unsafe ‘back alley’ mode for those who cannot go to neighboring states. And which righteous GOPers have received or will receive an abortion outside of Indiana?
There’s a reason that Republicans are all the sudden pushing a 15 week abortion law nationwide, one that would legalize around 93% of all elections that take place.
Then again, maybe Americans have realized that Republicans aren’t really pro-life, they’re just pro-forced birth. Their lack of follow through on their promises to support the resultant increase in births makes that clear. What’s Indiana done to substantially improve maternal outcomes or making child care affordable or better educational outcomes? You can’t just throw someone a pack of diapers and say good luck, but that’s what Republicans have to offer. Next will be removing access to contraception… likely not condoms of course. Why would they deny something to a man?
As was said in the last Republican debate, they’re not pro-life for the whole life, and that’s the problem.