A federal appeals court found Wednesday that an Alabama state law that bans a common abortion procedure is unconstitutional, becoming the first appeals court to weigh in on such a ban.
The ruling issued Wednesday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit pertains to a 2016 state law banning a procedure called dilation and evacuation, which is used in second trimester abortions done between the 15th and 18th weeks of pregnancy.
No federal appeals court had previously decided on the constitutionality of banning dilation and evacuation, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, which fought the law. Lower courts have blocked similar bans in Kansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas, the ACLU said.
Alabama sought to make the procedure, which involves dismembering the fetus, more humane. The 2016 law forbid dismembering a living unborn child, according to the appellate court’s opinion. It required abortion providers to kill unborn children before dismembering them.
However, the state’s abortion clinics sued and argued there was no safe or effective way for an abortion practitioner to “comply with the act by killing the unborn child before dismembering it,” the opinion said.
The appeals court ruled 3-0 that the law was unconstitutional because it eliminated access to abortion, and upheld a lower court’s ruling.
It remains unclear if the state plans to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court.
Abortion is expected to play a major part in the confirmation fight surrounding Supreme Court pick Brett Kavanaugh in the Senate. Kavanaugh’s hearing is expected to take place the first week of September. Democrats and abortion rights advocates say that Kavanaugh could roll back abortion rights since he is replacing the retired justice Anthony Kennedy, who had voted in favor of abortion rights.
