A Tennessee court will weigh whether to temporarily block the state’s abortion ban when it comes to dangerous pregnancies, after hearing arguments Thursday in a legal challenge to the law’s narrow medical exception.
The three-judge panel could also decide to dismiss the case entirely when it eventually renders its written decision.
The case against the state was brought by the Center for Reproductive Rights, which argues that the “unconstitutionally vague” language in the medical exception in Tennessee’s abortion ban endangers the lives of pregnant women.
In 2022, Nicole Blackmon was about 15 weeks pregnant when her fetus was diagnosed with a deadly anomaly, according to the lawsuit. Blackmon, of Nashville, was denied an abortion and later gave birth to a stillborn baby after more than 32 hours of labor.
“Because of the state’s cruel laws, I was forced to carry a baby for months that was never going to live,” she said in a statement. “I was condemned to endure both physical and emotional torture, knowing that I was going to deliver a stillborn.”
The nonprofit filed a lawsuit in September on behalf of Blackmon, who is the lead plaintiff, and six other women who were denied abortions despite facing major health complications, as well as two obstetrician-gynecologists who say the threat of extreme penalties has impeded their ability to provide care.
The penalties include up to 15 years in prison, a $10,000 fine and the loss of one’s medical license.
“It has a chilling effect,” Center for Reproductive Rights attorney Linda Goldstein said during Thursday’s hearing in Nashville.
Tennessee’s abortion ban went into effect on Aug. 25, 2022, about two months after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a landmark ruling that had guaranteed a constitutional right to abortion.
The state later created an exception for situations in which the abortion is “necessary to prevent the death of the pregnant woman or to prevent serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman.”
But abortion rights advocates argue that the ambiguous and nonmedical terminology leaves doctors uncertain about when they can render care without being prosecuted.
The medical exception doesn’t work if doctors “can’t understand it,” Goldstein said.
“Doctors are denying or delaying abortion care in cases where even defendants concede that it would be legally permissible,” she said. “They are doing this because the terms of the medical necessity exception are vague.”
Goldstein said the plaintiffs were not seeking to strike down the abortion ban. Instead, Goldstein said, attorneys for the plaintiffs wanted the court to “interpret” the statute and specifically confirm that the medical necessity exception permits abortions when there is a fatal fetal diagnosis that puts the mother’s life or health at risk.
The nonprofit said clarifying the medical necessity exception would allow doctors to “preserve a patient’s life or health without waiting for patients to be acutely ill.”
During Thursday’s hearing, one of the three judges said the panel cannot “redline” or rewrite the statute. Another judge pushed Goldstein to better illustrate the “immediate” harm that needs to exist to justify a temporary injunction.
In November, the state of Tennessee filed a motion to dismiss the case. In part, the state said, governmental entities are protected from being sued under a legal doctrine known as sovereign immunity.
In addition to the state of Tennessee, the plaintiffs are suing the state’s attorney general, the state’s Board of Medical Examiners and the board’s president.
The Center for Reproductive Rights has also filed similar lawsuits and complaints in Texas, Idaho and Oklahoma.
More than a dozen states have restrictive abortion bans or no longer have facilities where women can receive abortions.
