Montana Abortion Waiting Period Put On Hold Judge Gives State Lawyers Time To Prepare Defense For Sept. 1 Hearing
A new Montana law requiring women to wait 24 hours before obtaining an abortion was put on hold Tuesday for at least two months.
The law, scheduled to take effect Saturday, was delayed by a district judge to give state lawyers a chance to prepare their defense of the law in a suit challenging the constitutionality of the waiting period.
Judge Jeffrey Sherlock of Helena set a Sept. 1 hearing date on a request by Planned Parenthood of America for an injunction blocking the law until a full trial of the merits of the suit can be held.
Clay Smith of the attorney general’s office told Sherlock during a brief hearing Tuesday that he needs more time to research and write a response to the suit.
Mike Meloy, Planned Parenthood’s lawyer, agreed to postponing the hearing.
The law, passed by the 1995 Legislature, requires a doctor who is asked to perform an abortion to provide a woman detailed, stateprovided information about abortion and its possible medical and emotional consequences.
The 24-hour waiting period is intended to give a woman the opportunity to review the information.
Those supporting the law say it will allow a woman to give informed consent to an abortion. They call the legislation a medical rightto-know bill and insist it is not an anti-abortion law.
But the suit claims the requirement is an unconstitutional burden on a woman’s right to an abortion.
Poor women in rural Montana would be impacted most harshly by the law because they must travel long distances to obtain an abortion, the suit says. A waiting period would require them to miss an extra day’s work and incur added travel expenses, according to the complaint.
The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld waiting periods for abortion, but the suit alleges the law violates the Montana Constitution’s explicit right-to-privacy provision which the federal Constitution does not contain.
Smith said the case likely will be decided based solely on how the courts believe that privacy right applies to the abortion restriction contained in the new law.