Utah Court Temporarily Allows Abortions While Trigger Ban Is Challenged

The Utah State Capitol building in Salt Lake City, Utah, on January 17, 2021. GEORGE FREY/AFP via Getty Images

A Utah court on Monday granted a temporary restraining order against the state’s trigger law that made most abortions in the state at any point in pregnancy a crime after last week’s Supreme Court ruling.

Planned Parenthood of Utah filed the lawsuit directed at Utah Senate Bill 174 claiming the legislation violated Utah’s constitution.

Third District Judge Andrew Stone granted the temporary restraining order on Monday, which is in place for 14 days while the court hears the case.

Stone said Utah was not prepared for the immediate change in the abortion law and that taking away the ability to have an abortion outweighs “any policy issues of the state,” local media KSL reported.

With the restraining order in place, abortions can continue during the 14-day period, KSL reported. Planned Parenthood complained in its lawsuit that, since June 24, it had already been forced to cancel around a dozen abortions in Utah.

Republican Utah Sen. Dan McCay, who sponsored SB 174, said he was confident the ban will be upheld and decried the restraining order as a death sentence.

“Statistically 8.2 babies are aborted every day in Utah,” McCay said on Twitter on Monday. “Sadly, Judge Stone sentenced 115 babies to death. It’s disappointing that a law meant to protect the most vulnerable, the unborn, is delayed by one Judge with no support in the law.”

Utah’s Trigger Law

Utah’s abortion law was passed in 2020 and was triggered on June 24 when a Supreme Court ruling overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that made abortion legal in every state.

Following the ruling, the power to make laws around abortions returned to the states. Around two dozen states are said to have had trigger laws in place, according to research.

Under Utah’s new law, abortions are only legal in the state if the mother’s life is at risk, if the pregnancy was a result of rape or incest, or if two physicians both determine that the fetus has a severe defect.

Planned Parenthood’s lawsuit in Utah argues that SB 174 forces women to carry pregnancies to term, travel to a state where abortion is legal, or “self-manage” an abortion.

The abortion provider’s staff, which includes doctors, would be guilty of a second-degree felony if they violate the law. Planned Parenthood, as an abortion clinic, and individual doctors could also lose their licenses.

Doctors also face 1- to 15-year prison terms and steep criminal fines, the lawsuit said.

A lawyer representing the state of Utah has argued that protecting the rights of Utahns extends to its unborn citizens.

“The Supreme Court has been clear that states have a strong interest in protecting the rights of its unborn citizens,” said Tyler Green, the lawyer representing the state of Utah.