Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe Now
The Indiana Supreme Court on Thursday denied Planned Parenthood’s request to transfer a case challenging the state’s near-total abortion ban, nine months after the Indiana Court of Appeals denied the organization’s challenge to the ban.
The state’s high court issued the order on Thursday, with all justices concurring apart from Justice Christopher Goff, who voted to grant the transfer.
Planned Parenthood had requested the transfer to the state supreme court last August after the appellate court upheld a September 2024 decision by the Monroe Circuit Court.
“We’re deeply disappointed that this law will continue to put pregnant people’s health at risk through narrow exceptions that fail to reflect the realities of pregnancy and medical care,” the ACLU of Indiana, who represents Planned Parenthood in the case, said in a statement. “Hoosiers deserve better than political interference in these deeply personal health care decisions.”
Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita, whose office is representing the Medical Licensing Board of Indiana in the case, posted the following statement on social media: “Thanks to this decision, our protections for life remain constitutional and WILL be enforced. Like we’ve said before, no matter how many times Planned Parenthood tries to sue and push forward their culture of death, we will continue fighting for mothers, fathers, and the unborn.”
Shortly after the Supreme Court of the United States issued its decision on abortion rights in the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling — and after the Indiana Legislature met in a special session to pass a law banning abortion — the Indiana chapter of Planned Parenthood and other medical providers filed a lawsuit in Monroe Circuit Court challenging the facial validity of the state’s abortion ban under the state constitution.
Indiana’s ban prohibits abortions except in limited cases of rape or incest, fatal fetal anomaly, or to protect the life or health of the pregnant woman. The law also eliminates licensed abortion clinics in the state and instead requires legal abortion procedures to be carried out in a hospital or outpatient surgical care.
The trial court entered a preliminary injunction on behalf of the medical providers. On appeal, the state supreme court held a facial challenge to the statute could not succeed and remanded for further proceedings. On remand, the medical providers argued that there are several circumstances in which the life and health of a woman are at risk due to pregnancy.
The Court of Appeals sided with the trial court’s findings that the medical care providers failed to identify any specific physical or mental health condition that would be protected by the Indiana Article 1, Section 1 of the Constitution but not under Indiana’s abortion ban.
Please enable JavaScript to view this content.