Supreme Court Declines to Review Case Challenging Alabama Abortion Restriction

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court today declined to review a unanimous decision by the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals striking down an Alabama abortion restriction.

The restriction would have made it a crime for physicians to provide dilation and evacuation abortions (D&E), the only abortion method available after 15 weeks of pregnancy in the state.

Leading medical experts including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) oppose laws like this ban, and an evidence-based and non-partisan report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine described D&E as the standard of care for abortions after 14 to 15 weeks.

Jennifer Dalven, director of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, said:

“While we are pleased to see the end of this particular case, we know that it is nowhere near the end of efforts to undermine access to abortion. Politicians are lining up to do just what Alabama did — ask the courts to review laws that push abortion out of reach and harm women’s health, with the hope of the getting the Supreme Court to undermine, or even overturn, a woman’s right to abortion.”

More information on this case is available here: https://www.aclu.org/cases/west-alabama-womens-center-v-miller