Judge Blocks Indiana 2nd Trimester Abortion Procedure Ban

A federal judge blocked an Indiana law that would ban a second-trimester abortion procedure on Friday, just days before the law was set to come into force.

The order putting the Indiana law on hold was released hours after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to revive a similar law in Alabama that sought to ban dilation and evacuation abortions.

The law passed by Indiana's Republican-dominated Legislature this spring calls the procedure "dismemberment abortion." It was set to become effective on July 1.

ACLU attorneys argued that the ban would put a "substantial and unwarranted burden on women's ability to obtain second-trimester, pre-viability abortions."

In granting the preliminary injunction that blocked the law, U.S. District Judge Sarah Evans Barker wrote that it "prohibits physicians from utilizing the most common, safest, often most cost effective, and best understood method of second trimester abortion, requiring them instead to resort to alternatives that are medically riskier, more costly, less reliable, and in some instances simply unavailable, while accomplishing little more than expressing hostility towards the constitutionally fundamental right of women to control their own reproductive lives."

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["...the constitutionally fundamental right of women to control their own reproductive lives." Now that is an interesting phrase, isn't it? --Editor]