Americans United for Life (AUL) is pleased to share our Life Litigation Report for the first quarter of 2024. The report tracks major life cases across the country in federal and state courts. The goal of the report is to provide a useful resource in addition to AUL’s expertise on pro-life legal and policy issues.
This report describes four life cases are before the U.S. Supreme Court, 25 are before federal appellate courts, 48 are before federal district courts, and many more in state courts across the country.
Supreme Court Considers Two Abortion Cases
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on March 26, 2024 in Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine. The case presents the issues of whether pro-life doctors and medical organizations have standing to challenge the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) 2016 and 2021 actions deregulating chemical abortion drugs, and whether the FDA’s actions in deregulating the drugs were unlawful. In Moyle, Speaker of the Idaho House of Representatives v. United States, the Court is considering whether the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) mandates elective induced abortions in emergency rooms in certain circumstances. The Court will hear oral arguments on April 24, 2024.
Sidewalk Counselors Continue to Fight for their First Amendment Rights
Relying upon Hill v. Colorado, the Seventh Circuit affirmed a motion to dismiss a challenge to a bubble zone ordinance in Coalition for Life St. Louis v. City of Carbondale, Illinois. Within 100 feet of an abortion clinic, the ordinance prohibits sidewalk counselors from approaching a woman within an 8-foot bubble zone.
In Turco v. City of Englewood, New Jersey, the Third Circuit affirmed a judgment upholding a buffer zone ordinance. The law restricts sidewalk counselors from going into an 8-foot buffer zone outside the entrances to abortion clinics.
State Constitutional Battles over Abortion
In Allegheny Reproductive Health Center v. Pennsylvania Department of Human Services, a challenge over the state’s “Hyde Amendment,” the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held a sex-based distinction is presumptively unconstitutional under state equal protection principles, and there is a state constitutional right to reproductive autonomy. The court then remanded the case for further proceedings over whether the abortion funding restrictions pass constitutional muster.
The Iowa Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments on April 11, 2024 over what litigation standard to apply to abortion cases in Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, Inc. v. Reynolds. Iowa is notable for judicially contriving a right to abortion in 2018, overturning the purported state constitutional right to abortion in 2022, and by operation of law retaining a permanent injunction against the state’s heartbeat law in 2023.
The Montana Supreme Court heard oral arguments on March 6, 2024 over the state’s parental consent law in Planned Parenthood of Montana v. Montana. The Nebraska Supreme Court heard oral arguments about the 12-week abortion limit in Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, Inc. v. Hilgers on March 5, 2024.
We are waiting on state supreme court decisions over whether the state constitution protects abortion in Florida (Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida v. State of Florida), New Mexico (State of New Mexico ex rel. Raul Torrez v. Board of County Commissioners for Lea County), and Utah (Planned Parenthood Association of Utah v. State of Utah). There is also a pending decision in the Arizona Supreme Court over the state’s pre-Roe law in Planned Parenthood Arizona, Inc. v. Mayes.
In Vitro Fertilization and Personhood
An in vitro fertilization case went before the Alabama Supreme Court regarding the wrongful death of embryos kept in a cryogenic nursery in LePage v. Center for Reproductive Medicine. The court recognized the personhood of the embryos, holding “the [Alabama] Wrongful Death of a Minor Act applies to all unborn children, regardless of their location.”
Litigants are briefing the Texas Supreme Court on the merits of the legal status of cryogenically frozen embryos in a divorce case, Antoun v. Antoun. The trial court and Texas Court of Appeals both held the husband had dispositional authority over the frozen embryos under a mix of property and contract law. The case has implications for prenatal personhood as well as parental rights.
End-of-Life Litigation
In New Jersey, parties are litigating a motion to dismiss a challenge to the state’s assisted suicide residency requirements in Govatos v. Murphy. Currently only two states—Oregon and Vermont—permit assisted suicide for non-residents that meet the other statutory requirements for accessing the lethal drugs.
In United Spinal Association v. State of California, litigation has continued over the challenge to California’s End of Life Option Act for alleged unlawful discrimination against persons with disabilities. The district court is considering motions to dismiss the case, as well as Compassion & Choices’—an assisted suicide activist organization—motion to intervene in the case.
