Medical clinics that provide abortion filed lawsuit over abortion law

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Two medical clinics that provide abortion filed suit Monday asking a federal judge to block enforcement of a new law that imposes a 24-hour waiting period to terminate a pregnancy.

The action, filed by the Tucson Women’s Center and Family Planning Associates, contends the law, set to take effect Sept. 30, will place “substantial obstacles” in the path of women seeking to exercise their constitutional right to an abortion. It says some women will delay the procedure, which makes it more risky, while others will forego it entirely.

That lawsuit, filed on the clinics’ behalf, is only one attack on the law approved by the Legislature earlier this year. In separate action, Planned Parenthood Arizona filed a similar suit Monday in Maricopa County Superior Court seeking to void at least some of the provisions of the law.

The issues go beyond the mandated “cooling off” period and that the law requires that women be given certain information directly, some of it by a physician. That, both lawsuits charge, can result in women having to make two trips to a clinic, a particular hardship on patients from rural areas.

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Other elements of the new law being challenged include:

• a ban on nurse-practitioners performing surgical abortions;

• requiring minors to have a parental consent form notarized;

• allowing pharmacists and other health care providers to refuse on moral grounds to dispense contraceptives and the “morning after” pill.