Utah abortion ban remains on hold after ruling by state’s high court

That 2020 “trigger law” would prohibit all abortions except in cases of rape, incest or serious risk to the mother’s health, or if two maternal fetal medicine physicians determine that the fetus has a lethal defect or severe brain abnormality. A state district judge blocked the measure shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court ended federal protections for abortion in 2022, and Thursday’s 4-1 ruling maintains that suspension while the ban’s constitutionality is litigated in the lower court.

The decision by Utah’s majority-female Supreme Court means abortion remains broadly legal throughout the American West, with the exception of Idaho, where it is prohibited in nearly all cases. A ban is on hold in Wyoming, while voters in at least half a dozen states — including Colorado and Nevada plus possibly Montana and Arizona — will vote in November on ballot measures that would strengthen abortion rights.

Planned Parenthood Association of Utah and ACLU of Utah, which challenged the ban in 2022, hailed the ruling while cautioning that their battle has not ended. They argue that the law violates state constitutional rights to privacy, to bodily integrity and to determine one’s family composition.

“Today’s decision means that our patients can continue to come to us, their trusted health care providers, to access abortion and other essential reproductive services right here in Utah,” Kathryn Boyd, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Association of Utah, said in a statement. But, she added, the group “looks forward to this unconstitutional law being permanently struck down.”

For the legislature’s Republican supermajority, the ruling comes as another court setback. The state says its constitution, ratified in 1895, includes no right to abortion.

The court decision Thursday noted that the justices, all Republican appointees, were addressing only whether the lower court abused its discretion in concluding that Planned Parenthood met the then-standard for an injunction.

“The district court did not,” the majority said, also noting in its ruling that Planned Parenthood “raises serious issues” about the ban’s constitutionality.

Abortion opponents expressed disappointment and even “great sorrow” over the outcome. Gov. Spencer Cox and Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson said in a statement that they were “hopeful that this decision will be a temporary setback.” Others went further.

“The decision made today is a grim reminder that our society has strayed far from the moral compass that once guided us,” Mary Taylor, president of Pro-Life Utah, said in a joint statement with the leaders of Utah Eagle Forum and Abortion-Free Utah Coalition.

Abortion is now mostly or completely prohibited in 18 states, a patchwork that includes much of the South and Midwest. In Idaho, Utah’s neighbor, a sweeping ban allows only some emergency abortions at hospitals after a Supreme Court decision in June. Arizona prohibits abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

Planned Parenthood operates three of Utah’s four abortion clinics, which do the vast majority of procedures in the state. In 2021, the most recent year for which data is available, 3,129 abortions were recorded.

Utah’s legislature took aim at those facilities last year, requiring abortions to be performed in hospitals and prohibiting the licensing of such clinics. Planned Parenthood also sued over that measure, which it described as a backdoor attempt by the lawmakers to criminalize abortion even as the judiciary weighed their initial law.

The same district court suspended the clinic law just before it was to take effect. The legislature this year repealed the law in a bid to simplify — and expedite — the high court ruling issued Thursday.