Florida health care providers filed a lawsuit on June 1, 2022 bringing a state constitutional challenge to House Bill (HB) 5, a ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy that threatens to put doctors in jail for providing essential care beyond that point. Shortly after a state trial court officially issued an order blocking the state’s 15-week abortion ban on July 5, on the ground it likely violates Florida’s state constitution and will cause irreparable harm, the state appealed the ruling, triggering an automatic stay of that injunction under Florida state law. The law, which has been in effect since July 1, has already had devastating consequences on the health and futures of Floridians by forcing them to continue carrying pregnancies against their will.

On June 11, 2015, Florida abortion providers filed suit in state court to challenge a medically unnecessary law that would force virtually all people seeking abortions, unlike any other patients in Florida, to delay the care they need against their will and regardless of their personal circumstances. Since its enactment in 2015, the restriction has largely been blocked, but on March 23, 2022, a Florida state trial court indicated that it intended to rule for the State and dismiss the challenge, and, on April 8, 2022, the court issued an order upholding the law. The medically unnecessary and harmful law took effect upon entry of final judgment on April 25, 2022.

Whether a request for nominal damages to redress a past constitutional violation is sufficient to allow the court to rule, where the government has changed the challenged policy so there is no need for forward-looking relief.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, and DLA Piper LLP filed a federal lawsuit challenging the Florida Department of Corrections’ (DOC) denial of medically necessary care for Reiyn Keohane, a transgender woman currently detained in a men’s prison.

Decarceration has always been an emergency, a life and death proposition, but COVID-19 makes this effort intensely urgent. The ACLU has been working with our partners to litigate for the rights of those who are incarcerated and cannot protect themselves because of the policies of the institutions in which they are jailed.