Editor’s note • An update to this story can be found here.
The Utah Supreme Court said it will rule Thursday as to whether the state’s near-total ban on abortion should remain blocked until a lower court determines the law’s constitutionality.
After the U.S. Supreme Court undid the federal precedent that protected abortion as a constitutional right in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization in June 2022, Planned Parenthood Association of Utah immediately filed to stop Utah’s abortion trigger ban, and a state district court judge put the law on hold within a few days.
Since then, abortion has remained legal for up to 18 weeks of pregnancy in Utah. Depending on the direction of tomorrow’s decision, that gestational limit could remain in place or abortion could be banned in Utah for the foreseeable future — with limited exceptions.
Under the 2020 law that the state’s highest court is ruling on, abortion would be prohibited except in cases when the mother’s life is at risk or there is a fatal fetal abnormality. In cases of rape or incest, under a separate law passed last year, abortion would be allowed up to 18 weeks.
Attorney's Camila Vega with Planned Parenthood, left, and Julie Murray with the ACLU, listens to oral arguments involving Utah's abortion trigger law before the Utah Supreme Court, Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2023, in Salt Lake City. The state Supreme Court is weighing a lower court's decision to put a law banning most abortions on hold more than a year ago. (Francisco Kjolseth/The Salt Lake Tribune via AP, Pool)
The majority-woman Utah Supreme Court heard arguments in the case nearly one year ago. Justices asked questions on how the original meaning of the state’s constitution extends to this issue, and the boundaries of a person’s right to make medical decisions.
Article IV Section 1 the Utah Constitution says, “The rights of citizens of the State of Utah to vote and hold office shall not be denied or abridged on account of sex. Both male and female citizens of this State shall enjoy equally all civil, political and religious rights and privileges.”
In the hourslong hearing, attorneys for the state argued that because abortion was restricted when the constitution was ratified in 1895, the court should interpret that clause to not include abortion rights.
But Camila Vega, a staff attorney for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said the state’s founders “could not possibly have imagined a world where abortion is safe, legal and routine.”
According to the most recent data published by the state, there were 3,129 abortions in 2021, 2,978 of which were provided to Utah residents. The vast majority told their doctor they were seeking to terminate their pregnancy for socioeconomic reasons — they couldn’t afford to go through with giving birth and caring for a child.
The state’s vital statistics division has not yet published data on abortions after Roe v. Wade — the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that the federal Constitution generally protects abortion rights — was overturned in 2022.
Even with the 18-week allowance, Utah is categorized as having “very restrictive” abortion laws by sexual and reproductive health policy think tank the Guttmacher Institute. If the trigger law goes into effect, the state will join 17 other states in being “most restrictive” — or enforcing a near-total ban.
In the more than two years since justices struck Roe, researchers have pointed to Utah’s looming ban as a likely cause for a decrease in new doctors applying to work in the state and a motivator for OB-GYNs to change plans to work in Utah.
The supermajority-Republican Legislature, meanwhile, has worked to find ways to more quickly see its law implemented and make abortion harder to access.
A few months after an injunction was placed on the ban, a group of GOP lawmakers sent cease-and-desist letters using official Utah House letterhead to abortion providers, threatening prosecution if they continued offering that care. They later backpedaled, and said the letter was their opinion, not a legal document.
In November 2022, lawmakers voted to submit a rare amicus brief opposing the injunction on the law. And in 2023, the Legislature retroactively changed court rules as to when a judge can block one of its laws — specifically taking aim at language the district court judge used in stopping the trigger ban.
Later that session, the Legislature voted to ban abortion clinics in the state. Planned Parenthood sued to pause that law, too, as part of its trigger law case, describing it as an effort by the state ”to accomplish by other means what the Utah courts have prevented it from doing directly — ban abortion in Utah.”
A judge agreed, and pulled the brakes on the clinic prohibition. The Legislature repealed that law in its 2024 session to speed up a ruling in the overarching abortion ban lawsuit.
Correction • Aug. 1, 9:55 a.m.: This story has been updated to correct the gestational limit for abortion in Utah in cases of rape or incest.
