Judge throws out abortion law challenge after lawmakers alter wording

PHOENIX — A federal judge has formally thrown out a challenge to one of Arizona’s abortion restrictions now that lawmakers have agreed to alter it.

In a brief order, Judge Steven Logan dismissed the lawsuit filed against the state by Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers challenging a controversial 2015 statute that required women to be told their medication abortions may be reversible.

The same law also required the state Department of Health Services to tell women where they could find a doctor to halt the procedure once it was started.

Logan said the changes made by lawmakers earlier this year apparently satisfy the challengers.

The court order, however, is not the last word.

If nothing else, the judge said Planned Parenthood, the Center for Reproductive Rights and others can seek to have the state pay their legal fees.

More significant, the language of the measure lawmakers approved earlier this year — the language the challengers accepted — specifically leaves the door open to abortion foes like the Center for Arizona Policy to seek further changes in the statute.

Cathi Herrod, the organization’s president, was noncommittal when asked about her next step.

“We continue to monitor,” she said, saying CAP is always looking for ways to protect the health of women and their “pre-born children.”

Despite that, attorney Dan Pochoda of the American Civil Liberties Union which represented Planned Parenthood, said his group is satisfied with the new language.

The 2015 law deals with medication abortions. Women are given two drugs, one to kill the fetus and the second, at a later point, to expel it from the womb.

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Proponents cited testimony that large doses of progesterone, a hormone administered after the first drug but before the second, can stop the process.

More to the point, it said that doctors must personally inform women at least 24 hours before the procedures that “it may be possible to reverse the effects of a medication abortion if the woman changes her mind but that time is of the essence.” Doctors who did not comply faced suspension or revocation of licenses; clinics found in violation could be closed.

Challengers filed suit, with Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America calling the law “junk science.”

It never took effect, with Attorney General Mark Brnovich agreeing not to enforce it while the lawsuit went forward.

Earlier this year, lawmakers struck the original language.

It eliminates the language about pre-procedure warning. But it says that clinics have an obligation to tell women who question their decision but have not yet taken the second drug that the first drug alone “is not always effective and that she should immediately consult a physician if she would like more information.”

Pochoda said the new language simply acknowledges what doctors, including those who work for Planned Parenthood, concede is the truth.

“It’s a two-drug regimen,” he said. “There have been people who have not finished their regimen … and it has not resulted in an abortion.”

Herrod said the new verbiage satisfies her concern that women be told that they may be able to stop the procedure after the first drug. And she said it requires abortion providers to refer a woman who raises such questions to another doctor.

Bryan Howard, president of Planned Parenthood Arizona, said during the debate about the original 2015 law that its problems extended beyond the fact it was medically inaccurate to say abortions can be “reversible.”

Howard said it does not help women who have doubts to tell them before they start the procedure it might be reversible if they have second thoughts. He said if a woman who is unsure she wants to terminate a pregnancy should not seek out an abortion in the first place.