A Tallahassee judge will hear arguments, against a law the Florida Supreme Court says “would lead to irreparable harm.”
Lawyers representing an abortion clinic claim a two year old law is unconstitutional. The law, signed by Governor Rick Scott, requires that a woman must wait 24 hours before getting an abortion.
The lawyers were hired by Gainesville Woman Care and will go before Leon County Circuit Judge Terry Lewis this Wednesday to hear arguments in the case.
Along side the Gainesville Woman Care attorneys, is the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida that argues the Supreme Court’s ruling made clear the law should have been struck down permanently.
“No mandatory abortion delay in this country has ever survived strict scrutiny, and Florida’s explicit right to privacy, which is `as strong as possible,′ will not tolerate a different result,” the lawyers wrote requesting for a summary judgment.
At the time of it’s passage two years ago, a Leon County circuit judge issued a temporary injunction blocking the law. Then, in 2016, the 1st District Court of Appeal overturned that decision.
The case went to the Florida Supreme Court, and it ruled for a temporary block against the law.
“The mandatory delay law impacts only those women who have already made the choice to end their pregnancies. Indeed, under Florida’s pre-existing informed consent law, a woman can already take all of the time she needs to decide whether to terminate her pregnancy, both before she arrives at the clinic and after she receives the counseling information….No other medical procedure, even those with greater health consequences, requires a 24-hour waiting period in the informed consent process,” Justice Barbara Pariente wrote on behalf of the court’s majority. “