Utah sued over abortion

The constitutionality of the state's new ban on so-called partial-birth abortions has been challenged in a new federal lawsuit.

Utah Women's Clinic and the Planned Parenthood Association of Utah filed the suit in Salt Lake City's U.S. District Court on Monday, the day the ban went into effect, saying the partial-birth-abortion amendments passed in this year's legislative session and signed by Gov. Olene Walker in March "suffer from the identical two constitutional flaws" as a Nebraska statute recently struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The act bans the procedure except when it "is necessary to save the life of a mother whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness or physical injury, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself."

However, the suit says the ban's exception does not go far enough in allowing for the abortions to protect a mother's health or life.

Also, the suit faults the act for banning "partial-birth abortion," which it says is not a recognized medical term, and for defining the procedure so broadly "as to chill physicians from providing the safest and most common method of abortion used in the second trimester of pregnancy prior to viability, the dilation and evacuation (D&E) method."

The act, sponsored by Sen. Curtis Bramble, R-Provo, made it through both houses of the Legislature despite supporters' acknowledgment that a lawsuit was all but guaranteed.

Bramble said the law was modeled after a recent federal bill, signed into law by President Bush, that also bans partial-birth abortion.

Lawmakers who supported Utah's bill hoped they would be able to join a federal lawsuit over the issue so the state could avoid footing the bill.

Bramble, who had not seen the lawsuit when contacted by the Deseret Morning News and would not comment on specific allegations until he read it, said he is not surprised that the lawsuit was filed and he leaves it up to the state's attorney general's office to try to "respond appropriately."

"It wouldn't matter what limitations the Utah Legislature tries to place on abortions," Bramble said. "Planned Parenthood has threatened" to sue over any abortion-related legislation that falls short of allowing "abortion on demand."