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Planned Parenthood drops lawsuit over medication abortions

Ben Giles//August 23, 2016//[read_meter]

Planned Parenthood drops lawsuit over medication abortions

Ben Giles//August 23, 2016//[read_meter]

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Planned Parenthood Arizona and the state agreed to end a legal challenge in federal court to a law requiring doctors to tell women medication abortions can be reversed, three months after a new law rendered the lawsuit moot.

A group of doctors and Planned Parenthood Arizona sued the state in 2015 to block the controversial law, which would have required doctors to tell women who are seeking an abortion that it “may be possible to reverse the effects of a medication abortion if the women changes her mind but that time is of the essence.” Doctors also would have been forced to direct women to the Department of Health Services website, where they would have been provided information about a controversial procedure that some claim reverses medication abortions.

Gov. Doug Ducey in May signed a bill to repeal that law, as well as other anti-abortion laws adopted by the Arizona Legislature and signed by the governor this year in SB1324. Planned Parenthood Arizona and other groups were threatening legal action over the latest laws, which would have required doctors to administer medication abortions using outdated U.S. Food and Drug Administration protocols.

The repeal of SB1324, and with it the 2015 medication abortion law, rendered Planned Parenthood Arizona’s lawsuit moot.

“The repeal of this unjustified restriction is good news for women, but it shouldn’t have taken a year in court to convince Arizona politicians to keep junk science out of the exam room,” Andrew Beck, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union’s Reproductive Freedom Project, said in a statement. “Lawmakers should recognize that Arizona women deserve high-quality medical care – not political ideology masquerading as medicine.”

Josh Kredit, an attorney for Center for Arizona Policy – the influential pro-life group backing the 2015 law – said in April that repealing the abortion laws should free the state from the burden of defending itself in court.

As part of the repeal, new language was adopted that requires doctors and abortion clinic staff to inform women who are having second thoughts about an abortion after taking mifepristone – the first of two drugs required for a medication abortion – that the first drug alone is not always enough to end the pregnancy, a fact agreed upon by gynecologists. By providing women with that information, women can now be informed there’s a chance their pregnancy can be saved, Kredit said in April.

The case was one of many abortion-related lawsuits brought against Arizona. Planned Parenthood Arizona and Desert Star Family Planning sued the state in July to block a new 2016 law they claim is designed to cut them off from state and federal dollars provided to clinics that provide abortions.

Planned Parenthood officials have also announced Arizona is one of eight states in which the national organization will seek to repeal anti-abortion laws that may now be deemed vulnerable following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in June striking down strict abortion restrictions in Texas.

A spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood Arizona said the organization will seek attorney’s fees from the state in its case against the abortion reversal law.

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