PHOENIX â Attorneys for the state are not going to fight to uphold a controversial law that says women need to be told that their medication abortions may be reversible, at least not now.
In a brief filing Thursday, the Attorney Generalâs Office consented to U.S. District Court Judge Steven Logan entering a preliminary injunction barring the state from enforcing the law.
The concession is at least an interim victory for Planned Parenthood of Arizona and the Center for Reproductive Rights. Attorneys for both groups had argued the law amounted to requiring doctors to give their patients medically inaccurate information.
Mia Garcia, spokeswoman for Attorney General Mark Brnovich, said this does not mean the state is conceding the law is illegal. But she essentially conceded that there was a likelihood that Logan, after hearing the evidence, would have imposed a preliminary injunction himself.
âA full trial gives us the best opportunity to defend the statute,â Garcia said.
But getting to that full trial could take months â or longer. And that means the law, which the state never enforced after the lawsuit was filed, remains on hold.
The agreement comes less than two weeks before Logan had told both sides to be in court to argue whether he should order the preliminary injunction.
âI gather they decided to fight another day,â said attorney Dan Pocholda of the American Civil Liberties Union. âBut itâs obviously a significant victory for the women of Arizona and a loss for the reactionary forces of the Center for Arizona Policy and others who are pushing this obviously wrongful legislation and clear First Amendment violations.â
CAP President Cathi Herrod, whose organization helped craft the law and get it passed, said she defers to the decisions of the Attorney Generalâs Office in how best to defend the law. But Herrod disagreed with Pochodaâs view of the effect of the law on women.
âWhat is outrageous is the abortion industry that fights tooth and nail against giving women the information needed to make a decision about carrying through an abortion,â she said.
Medication abortions are available in Arizona through the ninth week of pregnancy.
The procedure involves two drugs: one designed to kill the fetus and a second to expel it from the womb. There is evidence the first drug is not always effective.
The law is based on the contention the abortion would be halted if a woman is given high doses of progesterone, a hormone, before the second drug is administered. Thus, the law requires doctors and others to personally inform women at least 24 hours before the procedure that âit may be possible to reverse the effects of a medication abortion if the woman changes her mind but that time is of the essence.â
Opponents say there are no peer-reviewed human studies to support that view.
