How long will Utahns have access to abortion care? Here’s what we know.

Abortion laws in Utah remain unchanged after the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday in a long-awaited decision that a near-total ban cannot be enforced. But the lawmaker behind the ban is making plans to further restrict abortion care before the calendar year runs out.

The Utah Supreme Court’s ruling last week comes two years after the country’s highest court reversed the constitutional protection originally enshrined in Roe v. Wade and launched reproductive policymaking down to states.

For now, abortion is legal for up to 18 weeks in Utah.

A complete ban, however, could still be in the state’s future. The case brought by Planned Parenthood Association of Utah next goes to a lower court to determine whether such a prohibition infringes on the rights laid out in the Utah Constitution — specifically, rights to bodily autonomy and equal rights across genders.

The 2020 law only permits abortion in instances when the mother’s life is at risk, when there is a fatal fetal abnormality or in cases of rape or incest. A separate law passed last year would limit abortions of pregnancies resulting from sex crimes to 18 weeks.

When is the ruling on constitutionality?

It’s unclear how long Utahns might wait for a ruling on the law that would make their state one of the most abortion-restrictive in the country. Meanwhile, both Planned Parenthood and the attorney general’s office have vowed to fight for their respective positions. Attorney General Sean Reyes said the state will “continue our vigorous defense” of the law, while the president of Planned Parenthood’s Utah affiliate told reporters, “we’re not going to back down.”

With their near-total ban in the air, Republican lawmakers are seeking ways to circumvent the judicial branch. GOP legislators have increasingly pursued that strategy during the last two years.

In 2022, some sent cease-and-desist letters using official Utah House letterhead to abortion providers, threatening prosecution if they continued offering that care, from which legislators later had to back off.

Last year, the Legislature voted both to retroactively change court rules targeting the abortion ban injunction and prohibit abortion clinics in the state. The former has so far had no impact on the blocked law. The clinic ban was also stopped by a judge as part of the trigger ban lawsuit, so lawmakers repealed that law to speed up a resolution to the case.

The sponsor of the near-total ban, Riverton Republican Sen. Dan McCay, said in a news conference Thursday that he asked Gov. Spencer Cox and legislative leaders to call a special session of the Legislature before the end of the year to shorten Utah’s 18-week gestational ban to six weeks. McCay is among the senators not up for reelection in November.

“My colleagues, at least on the Republican side, have been very supportive of pro-life measures in Utah,” McCay told reporters. “I have not talked to them about changing the gestational ban down to six weeks, but I’m confident that if we work through our process, work with the governor’s office, then we can craft a law that will create a short-term solution while we wait for the court’s decision.”

In Utah, the Legislature meets for 45 days beginning in January for its regular session. Outside of that, the body typically only passes laws when the governor calls it into a special session. But in 2018, voters approved a measure allowing lawmakers to call themselves into session with a two-thirds vote. Republicans hold supermajorities in the Utah Senate and House.

In response to an inquiry from The Salt Lake Tribune about the request, Cox said in a statement, “We are still reviewing the [court’s] opinion and will be having discussions with the attorney general’s office and legislative leadership regarding every possible option to determine the best way to proceed to protect our most vulnerable.”

Kathryn Boyd — the head of Planned Parenthood Association of Utah, which runs two of three abortion clinics in the state — said she wasn’t surprised by GOP lawmakers’ intentions and that the organization will be ready to fight a six-week ban.

Whether the struggle over such a proposal could be wrapped into the current lawsuit depends, an attorney for the organization said, on “the contours” of the legislation, adding, “we’ll keep all of our tools in our toolkit.”

McCay told reporters that he’s undeterred by the possibility of the courts also stopping a six-week ban. “If you were to limit our actions based on when the court felt like we should react,” McCay said, “I’m not sure that we would ever do anything.”

How six-week bans have played out elsewhere

If McCay is successful in passing a six-week ban, Utah would become one of several states to adopt that gestational limit since 2022. Over a dozen states have total bans on the book.

Abortion rights advocates say the impacts of a six-week ban, however, are not much different from a complete ban.

Doctors typically measure pregnancy from the last date of a person’s period — about two weeks before ovulation makes conception possible. In order for a person to know they are pregnant before they reach six weeks gestation, they would have to track their periods carefully and notice when it is late, then be able to quickly get an appointment with a doctor to confirm a pregnancy.

Up to a quarter of people who menstruate, however, don’t have a regular one-month cycle due to various medical conditions. And people who use birth control often have few periods or none at all, even though there’s still a possibility they can become pregnant.

With a tight window to schedule an abortion, clinics in states with a six-week limit have faced increased traffic and become overbooked, The Wall Street Journal reported, while people who don’t detect pregnancy soon enough have been forced to continue with pregnancies they would have otherwise terminated.

Whether his colleagues approve a six-week ban or not, McCay said the Legislature is still intent on seeing a total ban implemented. One option that is still on the table for GOP lawmakers is proposing an amendment to the state constitution banning abortion.

Amendments to the Utah Constitution require a two-thirds vote from both the House and Senate before heading to the ballot for Utahns’ approval.

If the lawsuit doesn’t go their way, Planned Parenthood is also weighing taking the abortion policy decision to Utah voters through a ballot initiative.

“We’re in the early stages of that discussion and what that might look like and looking at the framework to do that, but we’re seeing this happen in several states across the country, and we’re also seeing that those ballot initiatives are successful,” Boyd said.

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