The Utah Supreme Court listens to oral arguments involving Utah's abortion trigger law, Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2023, in Salt Lake City. The state Supreme Court is weighing a lower court's decision to put a law banning most abortions on hold more than a year ago. (Francisco Kjolseth/The Salt Lake Tribune via AP, Pool)
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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — State courts have become hotspots in the national abortion debate as Utah and Kansas courts weigh challenges Tuesday from providers over new laws regulating the procedure, more than a year after the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
The U.S. Supreme Court's June 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson transformed what was long a debate over the U.S. Constitution, immediately limiting the pathways abortion advocates could take in challenging restrictions from one state to the next.
In Kansas, legal battles over restrictions continue to unfold over how providers dispense abortion medications, what they must tell patients and a required 24-hour wait after in-person consultation. Questions about those restrictions hinge largely on the state constitution — and on the Kansas Supreme Court's 2019 decision declaring bodily autonomy a “fundamental” right included therein.
Judge K. Christopher Jayaram was expected on Tuesday afternoon to weigh the Kansas waiting period law and other requirements alread in place for more than a quarter century. The new law, which took effect July 1, requires providers to tell patients that...
The Justice Department’s $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” fund, which would pay out public money in compensation for alleged overreach in federal prosecutions, including for the insurrectionist...