NEW ORLEANS (AP) – Planned Parenthood is asking a federal appeals court to reconsider the question of whether the state of Louisiana must grant a long-sought license for an abortion clinic in New Orleans.
Planned Parenthood began the process to get a license to perform abortions at the New Orleans facility during Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal’s administration. The efforts continued after Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards succeeded Jindal in 2016. Both men oppose abortion rights.
Two Planned Parenthood organizations and three women filed a federal lawsuit in 2018 accusing the state of illegally delaying action on the application for a license. The state went to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals after a federal district judge refused to dismiss the suit.
A 5th Circuit panel also refused to dismiss. But, while keeping the lawsuit alive and sending it back to the district court, the three 5th Circuit judges also ruled that federal courts can’t order the state to license the facility. The right to the license is a matter of state law and “there is no free-standing federal right to receive an abortion-clinic license,” Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod wrote on behalf of the panel.
The plaintiffs in the case are Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, Planned Parenthood Center for Choice and three women, each identified as Jane Doe. They say the state, by not acting on the application for years, is in effect denying a license. They want the federal courts to order the state health department to “grant or stop withholding approval” of the license, arguing that the state has violated federal due process and equal protection rights and is attempting to unconstitutionally obstruct women’s access to abortion.