By Anne Reed
UPDATE 7/13/22: After this article was published, a judge in Baton Rouge put another temporary restraining order in place, allowing abortions to resume, and set another hearing for Monday, July 18, 2022.
Baton Rouge, LA – Louisiana is now abortion free after State District Judge Ethel Julien in New Orleans issued an order Friday dissolving a temporary restraining order that blocked the state’s three trigger laws:
- Act 467 passed in 2006 and made abortion illegal in all cases, except when giving birth would threaten the life of the mother.
- The Reaffirmation of the Human Life Protection Act of 2022 gave the 2006 law teeth by making punishment for the person who performs an abortion more serious (1-10 years in prison and fines of $10,000 – 100,000). It also defined the effective date of the law in relation to the overturn of Roe v. Wade.
- Senate Bill 388, also signed into law in 2022, prohibits mail-order abortions.
The temporary restraining order had been enforced after a Shreveport abortion clinic, Hope Medical Group for Women (HMGFW), filed a lawsuit against Attorney General Jeff Landry and the Louisiana Department of Health three days after Roe v. Wade’s overturn June 24.
Though the order temporarily blocked the state’s overlapping trigger laws, that order has now expired. As a result, the three abortion clinics in the state, HMGFW in Shreveport, Delta Clinic in Baton Rouge, and Women’s Health Care Center in New Orleans, were forced to halt all abortions.
Landry had called the lawsuit a “traveling legal circus” and accused the abortion clinic of “venue shopping,” after wrongfully filing in Orleans Parish where elected judges typically side with the abortion industry. However, Judge Julien dissolved the temporary restraining order and affirmed the assertion that HMGFW’s lawsuit against the state should have been filed in East Baton Rouge Parish.
Louisiana has now joined seven other states that have successfully banned abortion, as well as two other states where abortion clinics have halted abortions while pro-abortion attorney general (Wisconsin) and pro-abortion governor (West Virginia) try to overcome pro-life laws that were in place prior to the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.
Currently approximately 63,896,790 people, nearly 20 percent of the nation’s population, are living in an abortion-free state!
“The people of Louisiana have made it clear through their elected officials that baby killers are not welcome in their state,” said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman. “While the abortion industry continues to make every effort to manipulate the legal system, the chances of winning in this post Roe environment is extremely unlikely. The people of Louisiana have invested in prayer and laws that protect the most vulnerable among us.”
The court case will be transferred to the appropriate Judicial District Court in East Baton Rouge Parish where HMGFW plans to seek another temporary restraining order. But for now, no abortions can be legally performed in the state. And, if it is up to the people of Louisiana, it will stay that way.
