Skip to content
Center for Reproductive Rights
Center for Reproductive Rights

Primary Menu

  • About
    • Overview
    • The Center’s Impact
    • Center Leadership & Staff
    • Annual Reports
    • Corporate Engagement
    • Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
    • Careers
    • Contact Us
  • Work
    • Overview
    • Litigation
    • Legal Policy and Advocacy
    • Resources & Research
    • Recent Case Highlights
    • Landmark Cases
    • Cases Archive
    • World’s Abortion Laws Map
    • After Roe Fell: Abortion Laws by State
  • Issues
    • Overview
    • Abortion
    • Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights
    • Assisted Reproduction
    • Contraception
    • Humanitarian Settings
    • Maternal Health
    • COVID-19
  • Regions
    • Overview
    • Global Advocacy
    • Africa
    • Asia
    • Europe
    • Latin America and the Caribbean
    • United States
  • News
    • Latest News
    • Stories
    • Events
    • Center in the Spotlight
    • Press Releases
    • Statements
    • Press Room
    • Newsletters
  • Resources
    • Resources & Research
    • U.S. Abortion Rights: Resources
    • Maps
    • World Abortion Laws Map
    • After Roe Fell: Abortion Laws by State
    • Repro Red Flags: Agency Watch
  • Act
    • Overview
    • Give
    • Act
    • Learn
  • Donate
    • Become a Monthly Donor
    • Make a Donor Advised Fund Gift
    • Leave a Legacy Gift
    • Donate Gifts of Stock
    • Give a Gift in Honor
    • Attend an Event
    • Employee Matching Gifts
    • Mail a Check
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn
Donate
icon-hamburger icon-magnifying-glass Donate
icon-magnifying-glass-teal

Appeals Court Allows Abortion Care to Continue in Oklahoma During COVID-19 Pandemic

Center for Reproductive Rights - Center for Reproductive Rights - search logo
search Close Close icon
Center for Reproductive Rights -
Menu Close Menu Close icon
Donate

Primary Menu

  • About
    • Overview
    • The Center’s Impact
    • Center Leadership & Staff
    • Annual Reports
    • Corporate Engagement
    • Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
    • Careers
    • Contact Us
  • Work
    • Overview
    • Litigation
    • Legal Policy and Advocacy
    • Resources & Research
    • Recent Case Highlights
    • Landmark Cases
    • Cases Archive
    • World’s Abortion Laws Map
    • After Roe Fell: Abortion Laws by State
  • Issues
    • Overview
    • Abortion
    • Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights
    • Assisted Reproduction
    • Contraception
    • Humanitarian Settings
    • Maternal Health
    • COVID-19
  • Regions
    • Overview
    • Global Advocacy
    • Africa
    • Asia
    • Europe
    • Latin America and the Caribbean
    • United States
  • News
    • Latest News
    • Stories
    • Events
    • Center in the Spotlight
    • Press Releases
    • Statements
    • Press Room
    • Newsletters
  • Resources
    • Resources & Research
    • U.S. Abortion Rights: Resources
    • Maps
    • World Abortion Laws Map
    • After Roe Fell: Abortion Laws by State
    • Repro Red Flags: Agency Watch
  • Act
    • Overview
    • Give
    • Act
    • Learn
  • Donate
    • Become a Monthly Donor
    • Make a Donor Advised Fund Gift
    • Leave a Legacy Gift
    • Donate Gifts of Stock
    • Give a Gift in Honor
    • Attend an Event
    • Employee Matching Gifts
    • Mail a Check
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn

Related Content

Issues:

Abortion, COVID-19

Regions:

United States

Work:

In the Courts

Type:

News, Press Releases

Case Archive

For updates on Center cases, explore our case archive here.

Follow the Center

Donate Now

Join Now

04.14.2020

In the Courts Abortion United States News

Appeals Court Allows Abortion Care to Continue in Oklahoma During COVID-19 Pandemic

Justin Goldberg

Share

  • facebook
  • Twitter
  • linkedin
  • Email id
Appeals Court upholds lower court ruling to block COVID-19 abortion ban in case filed by the Center for Reproductive Rights and Planned Parenthood Federation of America

Today, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals let stand a lower court’s decision temporarily blocking Gov. Kevin Stitt’s ban on abortion care in Oklahoma during the COVID-19 pandemic. This means abortion providers in the state can continue providing essential, time-sensitive abortion care. The appeals court denied the state’s request to block a temporary restraining order issued by a lower court on April 6. Abortion providers will now seek a preliminary injunction from the district court which will continue to block the ban from taking effect until the case concludes. 



“It’s important that the appellate court rejected Oklahoma’s attempt to ban abortions in the state,” said Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights. “It’s time for Oklahoma and other states to stop exploiting the pandemic to shutdown clinics. Oklahoma’s true motive has never been more apparent. This has nothing to do with the current pandemic–it’s purely politics.” 



“Today Oklahomans can breathe a temporary sigh of relief. But the fight is not over. Instead of responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, Gov. Stitt is wasting valuable time and resources to attack essential, time-sensitive abortion services that cannot wait for a pandemic to pass,” said Alexis McGill Johnson, acting president and CEO, Planned Parenthood Federation of America. “Gov. Stitt’s relentless attacks on health care access during a public health crisis is making a dire situation even worse. We won’t stand for it. Planned Parenthood will continue to fight these cruel attacks on the abortion services our patients need in Oklahoma and across the country — no matter what.”



“We are relieved that the court upheld access to abortion, since we know our patients who need essential, time-sensitive medical procedures like abortion cannot wait,” said Brandon Hill, PhD, president and CEO of Comprehensive Health of Planned Parenthood Great Plains. “The last thing public officials should do in the midst of a public health crisis is attack health care of any kind. We will do everything in our power to ensure our doors remain open for the patients who need sexual and reproductive health care, including access to abortion.”



“It’s not hard to understand that abortion is time sensitve and cannot wait,” said Julie Burkhart, founder and CEO of Trust Women. “We are open and taking serious precautions to ensure the safety of our patients, staff and community.”



This lawsuit was filed on March 30 by the Center for Reproductive Rights and Planned Parenthood Federation of America after Gov. Stitt issued an order requiring all elective surgeries and minor medical procedures be postponed. Gov. Stitt subsequently declared that the order prohibits all abortions in the state, forcing all health centers to halt abortion services. Executive orders like these have forced some patients to travel hundreds of miles to find abortion services during the pandemic.



Oklahoma is not the first state to attempt to ban abortion during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Center for Reproductive Rights, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the ACLU, and other organizations have filed lawsuits in multiple states. Temporary restraining orders allowing abortion services to continue have been secured in Alabama and Ohio. Over the weekend, abortion providers in Texas filed an emergency request with the U.S. Supreme Court, asking that medication abortions be allowed to continue in the state.



Leading medical organizations like the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and the American Medical Association (AMA) have opposed these attempts to restrict abortion during the pandemic. Both groups filed an amicus brief in this case, stating: “[B]anning abortion will not help address the pandemic. Most abortions do not require any hospital resources and use only minimal PPE. And banning abortion will actually increase use of those resources and contribute to spread of the virus.” 



The Center for Reproductive Rights is challenging a host of other abortion restrictions in Oklahoma, including: a ban on the use of telemedicine to provide medication abortion; a law that forces patients to delay their abortion for at least 72 hours after receiving certain state-mandated information; a “physician-only” law that bans qualified medical professionals from providing medication abortion; a ban on the standard method of abortion after approximately 14 weeks of pregnancy; and a law requiring doctors to tell patients that some abortions can be “reversed” — a patently false statement.



This lawsuit was filed by the Center for Reproductive Rights, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, pro-bono counsel Dechert LLP, and local counsel Blake Patton of Walding & Patton PLLC. Plaintiffs in the case are Trust Women — an abortion provider with clinics in Oklahoma and Kansas — Dr. Larry Burns, and Comprehensive Health of Planned Parenthood Great Plains, which provides abortion services in Oklahoma and Kansas. 



The decision is available here.  



###   



MEDIA CONTACTS:  



Center for Reproductive Rights: [email protected]; 585-919-9966  



Planned Parenthood Media Office: [email protected]; 212-261-4433;  



Comprehensive Health of Planned Parenthood Great Plains: Mandy Culbertson; [email protected]; 913.735.6567


Related Posts

Azar v. Garza Amicus Brief

Abortion,United States,In the Courts

Complaint: Falls Church Healthcare Center et al. v. Norman Oliver et al.

Abortion,United States,In the Courts

Amicus Brief: State of California et al. v. Alex M. Azar et al.

Other Barriers, Contraception,United States,In the Courts

Sign up for email updates.

The most up-to-date news on reproductive rights, delivered straight to you.

Footer Menu

  • Careers
  • Privacy Policy
  • Gift Acceptance Policy
  • Contact Us

Center for Reproductive Rights
© (1992-2024)

Use of this site signifies agreement with our disclaimer and privacy policy.

Better Business Bureau Charity Watch Top Rated Center for Reproductive Rights
This site uses necessary, analytics and social media cookies to improve your experience and deliver targeted advertising. Click "Options" or click here to learn more and customize your cookie settings, otherwise please click "Accept" to proceed.
OPTIONSACCEPT
Manage consent

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Functional
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Performance
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytics
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
CookieDurationDescription
_ga2 yearsThis cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to calculate visitor, session, campaign data and keep track of site usage for the site's analytics report. The cookies store information anonymously and assign a randomly generated number to identify unique visitors.
_gat_UA-6619340-11 minuteNo description
_gid1 dayThis cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to store information of how visitors use a website and helps in creating an analytics report of how the wbsite is doing. The data collected including the number visitors, the source where they have come from, and the pages viisted in an anonymous form.
_parsely_session30 minutesThis cookie is used to track the behavior of a user within the current session.
HotJar: _hjAbsoluteSessionInProgress30 minutesNo description
HotJar: _hjFirstSeen30 minutesNo description
HotJar: _hjid1 yearThis cookie is set by Hotjar. This cookie is set when the customer first lands on a page with the Hotjar script. It is used to persist the random user ID, unique to that site on the browser. This ensures that behavior in subsequent visits to the same site will be attributed to the same user ID.
HotJar: _hjIncludedInPageviewSample2 minutesNo description
HotJar: _hjIncludedInSessionSample2 minutesNo description
HotJar: _hjTLDTestsessionNo description
SSCVER1 year 24 daysThe domain of this cookie is owned by Nielsen. The cookie is used for online advertising by creating user profile based on their preferences.
Advertisement
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
CookieDurationDescription
_fbp3 monthsThis cookie is set by Facebook to deliver advertisement when they are on Facebook or a digital platform powered by Facebook advertising after visiting this website.
fr3 monthsThe cookie is set by Facebook to show relevant advertisments to the users and measure and improve the advertisements. The cookie also tracks the behavior of the user across the web on sites that have Facebook pixel or Facebook social plugin.
IDE1 year 24 daysUsed by Google DoubleClick and stores information about how the user uses the website and any other advertisement before visiting the website. This is used to present users with ads that are relevant to them according to the user profile.
IMRID1 year 24 daysThe domain of this cookie is owned by Nielsen. The cookie is used for storing the start and end of the user session for nielsen statistics. It helps in consumer profiling for online advertising.
personalization_id2 yearsThis cookie is set by twitter.com. It is used integrate the sharing features of this social media. It also stores information about how the user uses the website for tracking and targeting.
TDID1 yearThe cookie is set by CloudFare service to store a unique ID to identify a returning users device which then is used for targeted advertising.
test_cookie15 minutesThis cookie is set by doubleclick.net. The purpose of the cookie is to determine if the user's browser supports cookies.
Others
Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet.
CookieDurationDescription
adEdition1 dayNo description
akaas_MSNBC10 daysNo description
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional1 yearThe cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others1 yearNo description
geoEdition1 dayNo description
next-i18next1 yearNo description
SAVE & ACCEPT
Powered by CookieYes Logo
Scroll Up