Arkansas’ attorney general is pushing back against a federal judge’s decision to block the state’s law restricting abortion pill provision.
AG Leslie Rutledge, a Republican, sent a notice of appeal Thursday seeking to overturn a June 18 preliminary injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker barring Arkansas from enforcing its law restricting medication abortions, The Associated Press reported. The judge put a 14-day temporary injunction on Arkansas’ law requiring doctors who provide medication abortions to have a contract with another physician with hospital-admitting privileges.
Baker’s injunction follows Planned Parenthood’s first request to block Arkansas’ law on June 8, according to ABC News. That request came less than two weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Planned Parenthood’s suit against Arkansas’ Abortion-Inducing Drugs Safety Act that would have allowed the organization to continue offering medication abortions.
Previously a Little Rock federal judge prevented the 2015 law from being enforced. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, however, overturned that judge’s previous decision, after which Planned Parenthood challenged the ruling. The abortion organization alleges the law presents an undue burden on women’s access to abortion when requiring abortion doctors to have a contract with a physician who has admitting privileges at a local hospital. (RELATED: Arkansas Effectively Banned Pill-Induced Abortions, And The Supremes Won’t Stop It)
Baker’s temporary restraining order will become a permanent injunction barring enforcement of the law if Rutledge’s appeal is rejected.
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