Utah asks court to reinstate law protecting preborn children from abortion

Attorneys for the state of Utah have filed a motion for summary judgment asking for the dismissal of a Utah Supreme Court ruling that placed a preliminary injunction on the state's law protecting most preborn children from abortion.

Planned Parenthood has also filed its own motion, asking the court to permanently rule in its favor.

Key Takeaways:

• Both the state of Utah and Planned Parenthood have filed motions for summary judgment, asking a judge to rule once and for all in the case of Planned Parenthood Assoc of Utah v. Utah. The state is requesting its law protecting most preborn children from abortion to be reinstated, while Planned Parenthood wants it be formally overturned.

• The last activity regarding the law was in August 2024, when the Utah Supreme Court upheld a preliminary injunction on the law by a vote of 4-1.

• Because of the injunction, abortions in the state remains legal up to 18 weeks.

The Backstory:

In 2020, Utah lawmakers approved a "trigger law" bill, protecting most preborn children from abortion if Roe v. Wade was overturned. The law should have taken effect following Roe's overturn in 2022, but that law was quickly challenged by Planned Parenthood in Planned Parenthood Assoc of Utah v. Utah.

In August 2024, the Utah Supreme Court voted 4-1 to uphold a preliminary injunction on the law placed by a lower court. Since that ruling, abortions in the state have been legal up to 18 weeks gestation.

The Details:

In its request, the state has asked the judge to allow a law which restricts most abortions to take effect. Assistant Attorney General Lance Sorensen argued that though the abortion industry may have persuasive arguments, those arguments do not mean there is an actual constitutional right to abortion in the state. He wrote:

"But the existence of persuasive policy arguments does not create constitutional rights. By way of analogy, many states are liberalizing their restrictions on a host of activities traditionally subject to regulation, such as recreational marijuana or assisted suicide, persuaded by policy arguments brought forth by proponents of legalization.

The fact that there may be persuasive policy arguments in favor of legalized recreational marijuana or assisted suicide does not transform those activities into constitutional rights. It is the same with abortion."

Planned Parenthood, which had challenged the state's 2020 trigger law, has also filed its own motion asking the court to permanently dismiss the pro-life law altogether. It argues that the pro-life law violates the state constitution, "including the rights to bodily integrity, privacy, sex equality, and free exercise."

"The undisputed facts establish that the Ban — a near-total ban on abortion from the earliest stages of pregnancy, with only narrow exceptions — impermissibly infringes on numerous enumerated and unenumerated rights protected by the Utah Constitution," argued Planned Parenthood attorney Troy Booher.

Reality Check:

The pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute classifies Utah's current abortion laws, which allow it up to 18 weeks gestation, as "very restrictive." Some of the other reasons it gives for this classification are:

• A pre-abortion counseling visit must take place 72 hours before an abortion.

• Neither state Medicaid nor private health insurance can cover abortion except in limited circumstances.

• Parental notification and consent are required before a minor can get an abortion.

• The law allows only physicians to offer abortions.

When classifying laws like these, Guttmacher ignores details and information pertaining to the preborn child who is killed in an abortion, aside from gestational age. But this is not irrelevant information when it comes to how people sometimes form their opinions about abortion.

Many individuals change their minds about abortion, agreeing it should be restricted significantly or entirely, once they learn about the development of the preborn child. By 18 weeks (16 weeks after fertilization), a preborn child's movements can be felt by the mother (known as 'quickening'), the baby has begun to store fat in his upper and lower limbs, he has developed tooth enamel, and he experiences hormonal stress responses to stimuli in the womb, according to the Endowment for Human Development.

You can see more information about human prenatal development in Live Action's incredibly detailed videos, including this one:

A Never Before Seen Look At Human Life In The Womb | Baby Olivia

For even more details, watch Beyond Ultrasound and Baby Oliver.

The Bottom Line:

Regardless of what a court decides, there is never a right to kill an innocent human being. Abortion — the direct and intentional killing of the preborn child — always violates that human being's fundamental right to life.