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Tulsa Women’s Reproductive Clinic v. Drummond (formerly Nova Health Systems v. Cline et al.)

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Tulsa Women’s Reproductive Clinic v. Drummond (formerly Nova Health Systems v. Cline et al.)

Filing date: 10.02.2015

(Updated 03.26.24) On March 12, 2024, the Oklahoma Supreme Court dismissed this lawsuit, finding the plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge the law because the clinic is no longer a registered business in Oklahoma.

The clinic was forced to stop performing abortions in May 2022, when the Oklahoma Supreme Court allowed a total abortion ban modeled on Texas’s vigilante law to take effect. After the U.S. Supreme Court eliminated the federal constitutional right to abortion later that summer, the clinic closed altogether, opening a new location in Illinois to continue providing care.

This lawsuit challenged two Oklahoma measures which threaten to make safe and legal abortion even harder to obtain in a state that had only two abortion providers:

  • The first measure, HB 1721, bans the most commonly used method (“D&E”) of ending a pregnancy in the second trimester—which could force some women to undergo additional invasive, unnecessary procedures, incur additional costs, delay their care, or even lose access to abortion services entirely.
  • The second measure, HB 1409, triples the state’s mandatory waiting period from 24 to 72 hours for all women seeking abortion services, forcing women to delay constitutionally protected health care for at least three days, the longest waiting period in the country.

Both measures were signed into law by Governor Mary Fallin in 2015. The mandatory delay, HB 1409, took effect in November of that year. The D&E ban, HB 1721, was blocked by a temporary injunction from November 2015–March 2024.

This lawsuit was one of over a dozen challenges to abortion bans and other restrictions that the Center for Reproductive Rights has filed in Oklahoma since 2010.

Plaintiff(s): Tulsa Women’s Reproductive Clinic v. Drummond (formerly Nova Health Systems d/b/a Reproductive Services)

Center Attorney(s): Autumn Katz, Molly Duane

Co-Counsel/Cooperating Attorneys: Blake Patton at Walding & Patton

Summary: 

The Center filed a complaint in Oklahoma state court on October 2, 2015, challenging HB 1721, which bans the most common method (“D&E”) of second trimester abortion, and HB 1409, which tripled the state’s mandatory waiting period from 24 to 72 hours. The Center argues that these measures violate a woman’s constitutional right to abortion, the Oklahoma Constitution’s prohibition on special laws, and were passed for the improper purpose of restricting women’s access to abortion care in Oklahoma. On October 14, the district court granted our motion for a temporary injunction of HB 1721, blocking the D&E ban. HB 1409, the 72-hour mandatory delay, took effect on November 1, 2015.

On July 13, 2018, the Center filed a request with the trial court asking that both laws be permanently enjoined as impermissible under the Oklahoma Constitution. On December 11, the trial court upheld the 72-hour delay law.

On July 12, 2019, the judge announced from the bench at a hearing that the trial court would uphold the D&E ban. The Center filed a motion to preserve the status quo and keep the D&E ban blocked pending an appeal to the Oklahoma Supreme Court. While the trial court initially denied the motion, on November 4, the Oklahoma Supreme Court reinstated the temporary injunction pending appeal. The parties then submitted further briefing at the request of the Court, first in December 2019 and then in November 2023. In December 2023, the State filed a motion to dismiss the case, arguing plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge the law.

On March 12, 2024, the Oklahoma Supreme Court granted the State’s motion and dismissed the case, since the plaintiff, Tulsa Women’s Reproductive Clinic, was forced to close after the state began enforcing a total abortion ban in 2022. Abortion has been banned in Oklahoma since May 2022 when the Oklahoma Supreme Court allowed a vigilante ban to take effect, over one month before the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling overturning Roe v. Wade. The law, which was modeled on Texas’s 2021 vigilante 6-week abortion ban, forced clinics in the state to stop providing abortion care. After the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, Oklahoma revived its pre-Roe abortion ban through a trigger law. The state’s ban criminalizes all abortions except when “necessary to preserve” the life of the pregnant person. While the Oklahoma Supreme Court struck down the state’s vigilante ban in May 2023, the pre-Roe ban remains in place. Oklahoma is one of 14 U.S. states that has banned abortion since the Supreme Court’s ruling.

Legal Documents:

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