The recent ban on abortion after 15 weeks, out of Florida, will still be enforced while the currently ongoing court cases over its constitutionality play out in the court system.
Circuit Judge John Cooper, out of Leon County, put forth a temporary injunction concerning the law just last week, claiming that it violated the constitution of Florida. The state appealed, which, due to the court rules in Florida, forced a stay of the injunction and let the law stay in effect. Judge Cooper outright denied all requests from abortion clinics and a physician to vacate the stay.
As part of their emergency motion, the plaintiffs were incredibly sure about the fact that the injunction would need to go through.
“Every day that HB 5 (the law) remains in effect, Florida patients in desperate need of post-15-week abortion services are being turned away and forced to attempt to seek abortions out of state, if they are able to do so; to attempt abortions outside the medical system, or to continue pregnancies against their will,” claimed the motion.
Judge Cooper chose to decline all requests. He highlighted that the “very high burden” set by the 1st District Court of Appeals for the vacating of stays throughout the appeals process, Cooper stated that “courts are obliged to follow binding precedent even if they might wish to decide the case differently” and noted that direction from the appeals court would mean that automatic stays could only be vacated “under the most compelling circumstances.”
HB 5, the law in question, was officially passed back in March and sparked quite a bit of criticism from the White House and the vast majority of pro-abortion protesters across the nation. Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Republican governor, has often butted heads with officials of the Biden Administration about policy, especially surrounding the more hot button issues such as gender ideology and COVID restrictions.
This new law was officially challenged on the grounds that it went against a provision for privacy within the Constitution of Florida. Without the new restrictions, abortion throughout the state would stay legal out through the first 24 weeks of pregnancy, and the 55 various abortion clinics could stay open and offer then services to all women in neighboring states, many of which had triggered laws that have already or will seek to ban abortion in the wake of the recent overturning of Roe v. Wade, or else possess even more stringent restrictions concerning abortion than the new law that is being put through the courts in Florida.