NEWS

Judge blocks Florida abortion law

BEN BRASCH
BBRASCH@NEWS-PRESS.COM
Florida State Capitol in Tallahassee

A Florida judge has granted an emergency injunction that blocked a new state law requiring women to wait 24 hours before getting an abortion.

Judge Charles Francis blocked the law Tuesday, the day before it was scheduled to take effect and impact women throughout the state.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida and the Center for Reproductive Rights sued after Republican Gov. Rick Scott signed it into law. The groups argued that the law would violate the right to privacy guaranteed in the state constitution by interfering with the right of women to undergo the procedure.

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"We were happy to get the court's decision in time to stop it in its tracks," said Nancy Abudu, legal director of the ACLU of Florida.

Florida was set to become the 27th state to have a mandatory waiting period and backers of the measure had predicted the law would withstand a legal challenge. They said the law would create a reflective period that they hoped would change some women's minds before ending their pregnancies.

Abortion was the subject of emotional debate during the Legislature's regular session that ended May 1. Democrats complained the bill was simply an effort to put up roadblocks to infringe on women's rights to an abortion while Republicans said women should have to wait before making such a major decision.

Abudu said the injunction is only temporary.

"It does give the court more opportunity to review the law," she said.

The law has exceptions for victims of rape, incest, domestic abuse or human trafficking if women present their doctors with a police report, restraining order or similar documentation backing their claim. But the lawsuit said requiring documentation in those cases is meaningless because the majority of victims don't report those crimes.

Francis, who was first appointed to the bench by former Gov. Jeb Bush, wrote that state officials did not demonstrate why the new law is not a burden on privacy rights. He also stated that it didn't matter that other states have similar laws because Florida's right of privacy is broader.

"After an evidentiary hearing, the court has no evidence in front of it in which to make any factual determination that a 24-hour waiting period with the accompanying second trip necessitated by the same is not an additional burden on a woman's right to privacy," wrote Francis in his decision.

Abudu explains that with the injunction in place, now begins the long legal volley of appeals.

Even still, she said: "We believe that we'll be successful even at the appellate stage ... There is no medical justification for this law, we believe it was grounded completely in politics."

The Scott administration had no immediate reaction to the ruling. But at the time the lawsuit was filed the governor defended the new requirement.

"As a parent and a grandparent, the sanctity of life is important to me. This 24-hour waiting period is an important step to protecting life while ensuring there is more time to make a life-changing decision," Scott said through a spokeswoman.

Abudu said she is glad the ACLU rushed to file the injunction because stopping this law means so much to so many women in the state.

"As a woman who lives in Florida and wants to maintain the right to privacy regardless of health decisions … this law would have been a rollback in the rights of women," she said.

Connect with this reporter: @ben_brasch (Twitter) and Ben Brasch - Reporter (Facebook). The Associated Press contributed to this report.