Court Orders Preliminary Injunction Against Utah Abortion Ban

On Thursday, June 10, 2004, the Utah Attorney General’s Office, on behalf of the State of Utah and the Salt Lake City prosecutor’s office, agreed to a court-ordered preliminary injunction to prevent enforcement of the “Partial Birth Abortion Amendments” recently enacted by the Utah Legislature. Utah’s law is virtually identical to the “Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003” enacted by the United States Congress, which is currently the subject of three constitutional challenges and which has been preliminarily enjoined by three federal district courts. The preliminary injunction against enforcement of the Utah law will remain in place until after the challenges to the federal statute have been decided by the three federal courts of appeals. The lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Utah’s law was filed by the Utah Women’s Clinic and Planned Parenthood Association of Utah on May 4, 2004.