Utah Supreme Court is about to weigh in on case blocking state’s abortion trigger law

Photo by Jerod MacDonald-Evoy | Arizona Mirror

Utah’s highest court is poised to issue a ruling in a court case that’s currently blocking the state’s sweeping abortion ban from becoming law.

The Utah Supreme Court is scheduled on Thursday at 10 a.m. to release its opinion in Planned Parenthood Association of Utah’s lawsuit with the state of Utah — a ruling that will mark a significant development in litigation that’s gone on for more than four years.

In 2020, the Utah Legislature passed SB174, known as the “trigger law” that would take effect should Roe v. Wade be overturned and ban nearly all abortions at any stage of pregnancy, except in certain circumstances. Those include cases of rape or incest, if the mother’s health is seriously at risk, or if two maternal fetal medicine physicians agree the fetus has a lethal birth defect or a severe brain abnormality. 

In June 2022 and as Utah lawmakers hoped, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade decision, removing the constitutional right to abortion. Utah’s ban then became law, but was quickly put on hold by the legal challenge from Planned Parenthood. 

In the meantime, abortions have remained legal in Utah up to 18 weeks of most pregnancies under a 2019 law, which remains in effect today.

Last August, the Utah Supreme Court heard oral arguments about whether the injunction on the trigger law should stay in place, blocking it from taking effect. Also last year, a 3rd District Court judge blocked another bill passed by the 2023 Utah Legislature that would have banned abortion clinics.

It’s been almost three years now since a judge blocked the 2020 trigger law from taking effect after Roe v. Wade was struck down. When Utah’s Republican supermajority Legislature repealed the state’s 2023 ban on abortion clinics during this year’s session, GOP legislators hoped it would streamline the implementation of Utah’s 2020 trigger abortion ban should the Utah Supreme Court uphold it. 

Republican lawmakers want the Utah Supreme Court to let their abortion ban take effect, while Planned Parenthood of Utah is hoping the court will side with their arguments that the ban should remain blocked while lower courts determine whether it violates the Utah Constitution. 

After last summer’s oral arguments, Planned Parenthood Association of Utah CEO Kathryn Boyd told reporters in a news conference that if the court decides to end the injunction on the trigger law, Planned Parenthood’s Utah clinics would immediately stop abortions. 

“(Patients) will have to travel out of state, they will have to find hotel accommodations,” Boyd told The Salt Lake Tribune at the time. “They will have to figure out all of these pieces just so that they can monitor and control their own bodily autonomy.”

During that hearing, attorneys for the state of Utah argued the “original public meaning” of the Utah Constitution drafted in 1895 didn’t guarantee a right to abortion. 

“Dobbs returned that question to the people and their elected representatives,” said Taylor Meehan, Utah’s outside counsel, KUER reported at the time. “There is no constitutional text, history or common law tradition that can support it, and yet the state’s law has been under stay for one year and 28 days, allowing thousands of abortions to proceed.”