A judge for the Federal District Court for Southern Indiana [official website] placed an injunction [text, PDF] on a restrictive abortion law [text, PDF] Thursday, just days after the US Supreme Court [official website] found similar Texas legislation to be unconstitutional. The Indiana law would have banned women from seeking abortion procedures when they are based on race, sex, or the potential for or actual diagnosis of a disability in the fetus. The judge also enjoined a provision for information dissemination practices, and another provision mandating the types of arrangements that can be made for the disposal of the fetal tissue. The court held that the anti-discrimination provisions, which specifically prohibit pre-viability abortions based on certain enumerated classes, would likely be found unconstitutional under several Supreme Court precedents. Such precedents root a woman’s right to choose a pre-viability termination under the Fourteenth Amendment [text]. Also paramount in consideration for this provision was the weight of this right against the state’s interest in restricting abortions. The information provision was blocked because it would likely force providers to give out false information. The tissue disposal mandate, which would require either a burial or cremation of the fetal remains, was enjoined because a fetus is not legally considered a person and therefore no mandate based on the personhood of a fetus is likely to be granted.

Earlier this week the US Supreme Court ruled [opinion, PDF] 5-3 in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt [SCOTUSblog materials] that a Texas law [HB2 text] imposing certain requirements on abortion clinics and doctors creates an undue burden on access to abortion, and is therefore unconstitutional. A collection of Texas abortion providers challenged provisions of HB2 requiring doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a local hospital and requiring abortion clinics to conform to state standards for ambulatory surgical centers on the grounds that such requirements violated the Fourteenth Amendment [text] as interpreted by the Court in Planned Parenthood v. Casey [text]. The Indiana statute contained a similar “admitting privilege” provision.