Center for Reproductive Rights Submits Amicus Brief Supporting ACLU’s Challenge to Alabama Abortion Ban

(MEDIA ADVISORY) The Center for Reproductive Rights yesterday filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit supporting the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) challenge to Alabama’s unconstitutional ban on a safe, medically proven method of ending a pregnancy in the second trimester.  Similar laws in Louisiana, Kansas and Oklahoma have not taken effect due to challenges brought by the Center for Reproductive Rights. 

The brief seeks to refute legal claims made by Attorneys General from 22 states in support of the unconstitutional measure.  Specifically, the Attorneys General from those 22 states—which include Arizona, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas—ignore the Supreme Court’s ruling in Whole Woman’s Health and ask the Eleventh Circuit to strip a woman’s constitutional right to abortion of any meaningful protection.

The Center’s brief argues that last summer’s landmark Supreme Court ruling in Whole Woman’s Health—which not only reaffirmed a woman’s right to safe, legal abortion, but also reiterated the undue burden standard—applies to the Alabama measure and that the Alabama ban is unconstitutional under previous Supreme Court decisions. 

Attorneys General from 15 states and the District of Colombia also submitted an amicus brief to the Eleventh Circuit in support of the ACLU’s challenge, calling the ban “a clear threat to the ability of women to access safe and medically-sound reproductive healthcare.”

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