ABORTION CLINIC REOPENED

Reproductive Health Services is shown in this Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2006, file photo in Montgomery, Ala. (AP Photo/Jamie Martin, File)

(JAMIE MARTIN)

A federal judge blocked two laws today that would have restricted abortions in Alabama, including one that would prevent clinics from operating within 2,000 feet of public schools.

The other law would ban dilation and evacuation abortions, which are commonly performed in the second trimester.

U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson is hearing a challenge to the laws brought by the ACLU of Alabama. Today's ruling blocks the implementation of the laws because they will likely be found unconstitutional.

In his opinion, Thompson wrote that the state's efforts to reduce disruption at schools located near two clinics placed an undue burden on women seeking abortion.

"The record contains absolutely no evidence of concerns expressed by the school's students or their parents about the Huntsville clinic or the demonstrations near it," Thompson wrote. "As to Highlands, the State's two interests (minimizing disruption and supporting a parent's right to control their children's exposure to the subject of abortion) would not in any way be furthered by the closing or relocation of the Huntsville clinic.

The closure of two of the state's five abortion clinics would disproportionately affect low-income women who would have to drive further, even out of state, to get abortions, Thompson wrote.

The ACLU of Alabama has challenged seven abortion restrictions passed in Alabama during the last three years.

"It's long past time for our elected officials to stop wasting time and taxpayer money passing laws that violate women's constitutional rights and start focusing on the needs of women and families in this state," said Susan Watson, executive director of the ACLU of Alabama, in a statement. "Alabama women deserve to access their rights protected by the Constitution. And our doctors deserve to be able to provide care in clinics, not fight medically unnecessary laws in courthouses."

The law banning abortion clinics within 2,000 feet of K-8 public schools would have shut facilities in Huntsville and Tuscaloosa. Those two clinics performed more than half the abortions in Alabama in 2014, according to the Alabama Department of Public Health.

The location ban is unique to Alabama, but bans on dilation and evacuation have been passed in other states. They have also been blocked by judges in Kansas and Oklahoma.

Abortion proponents say dilation and evacuation is a standard medical procedure, but opponents describe it as barbaric. The law would have required a doctor to stop the fetus's heart before the procedure, but methods for doing so are experimental and risky to pregnant women, Thompson wrote. Dilation and evacuation abortions often occur later in a pregnancy and accounted for almost all the 560 abortions performed after 15 weeks at the Huntsville and Tuscaloosa clinics.

The proposal to ban abortion clinics within 2,000 feet of schools originated in Huntsville. The Alabama Women's Center for Reproductive Alternatives sits across the street from a magnet school. Rev. James Henderson of Huntsville and other abortion opponents have clashed with patients and escorts during protests for years, which they argued could be harmful for young students.

Alabama lawmakers have passed several restrictions on abortion in recent years, including laws requiring doctors to have privileges at local hospitals and imposing surgical-center standards. The ACLU has challenged those laws.

The number of abortion clinics operating in Alabama has dropped from 12 to five in the last 15 years. Attorneys for the ACLU have argued that state restrictions infringe on a woman's right to choose abortion. In a landmark decision earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down several abortion clinic restrictions in Texas that would have shuttered most of the state's facilities.