By Brendan Pierson
(Reuters) - Utah's highest court on Thursday refused to allow the enforcement of a near-total abortion ban while a lower court judge considers a challenge to the law by Planned Parenthood.
The Utah Supreme Court did not decide the merits of Planned Parenthood's challenge, but in a 4-1 opinion said that Judge Andrew Stone of the Third Judicial District Court for Salt Lake City was justified in blocking the law while he considers the case. The majority said the lawsuit "raises serious issues concerning (the law's) constitutionality."
The case will now continue before Stone.
"While we celebrate this win, we know the fight is not over," Kathryn Boyd, president of the Planned Parenthood Association of Utah, said in a statement. The organization "looks forward to this unconstitutional law being permanently struck down," she added.
"While we are disappointed, we are not deterred," Republican Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes said in a statement, adding that the state would continue its "vigorous defense" of the law in the lower court.
Planned Parenthood sued the state in June 2022, arguing that the abortion ban violated women's rights to bodily integrity and privacy recognized by Utah's constitution. The following month, Stone issued his preliminary order halting enforcement of the law while the case is pending.
Utah's ban was passed in 2020 as a so-called "trigger law," which would take effect if the U.S. Supreme Court eliminated the national right to abortion it had recognized since its 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling. The court did so on June 24, 2022.
Utah, in appealing Stone's order to the state Supreme Court, argued that Planned Parenthood had no standing to bring the case because it had no "personal stake" in the dispute. The majority of the court disagreed, saying it had standing to sue on behalf of its patients.
Chief Justice Matthew Durrant dissented, saying Utah law did not allow that kind of third-party standing.
In the two years since the U.S. Supreme Court's 2022 ruling, more than 20 Republican-led states have banned or significantly restricted abortion. The new restrictions prompted numerous lawsuits, many of which remain pending.
(Reporting By Brendan Pierson in New York; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Daniel Wallis)
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