Judge Denies Effort to Block Louisiana’s Stiff Abortion Law

A Louisiana judge on Friday denied a request by Planned Parenthood’s Louisiana branch for an immediate preliminary injunction blocking the nation’s toughest abortion law.

District Judge Robert Downing said it is too early to block the law until it is tested in both federal and state courts.

He set an Aug. 29 date to decide whether the law, which bans abortions except in cases of rape or incest, violates the state law on privacy rights.

“It is my considered opinion that a preliminary injunction is premature before the (law) goes into effect,” Downing said.

The abortion law’s constitutionality as it pertains to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe vs. Wade decision legalizing abortion will also be tested in a federal court in New Orleans Aug. 13.

Former state Supreme Court Justice Mack Barah, representing Planned Parenthood’s Louisiana branch, argued that the court should grant the injunction in order to clear up some of the confusion among pregnant women concerned about the outcome of their pregnancies.

“The law is full of ambiguity, and Louisiana doctors are running scared. The law is too vague on the issue of Cesarean sections,” Barah said.

He said if a Cesarean delivery went awry and the baby died, the doctor could be charged with terminating a pregnancy under the abortion law.

Louisiana Atty. Gen. William Guste argued against the injunction and the state’s court date, saying the trial could be superseded by the federal court’s opinion.

“Let’s at least decide the constitutional issue that is challenging Roe vs. Wade before going any further with this,” Guste said.

He said Louisiana’s privacy laws, which are more liberal than those of the U.S. Constitution, were adopted to protect citizens from illegal searches and seizures and were not intended to permit abortions.

Barah was expected to argue in state court that the law violates Louisianians’ rights to privacy.