Tennessee's abortion wait period law faces court arguments

[Judi Lynn]

Travis Loller, Associated Press
Updated 4:33 pm CDT, Friday, September 20, 2019

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Four years after Tennessee passed a law requiring a 48-hour waiting period for women seeking abortions, abortion clinics are getting a chance to argue against it in court.

Beginning Monday in federal court in Nashville, attorneys for five of the state's seven abortion clinics will try to prove that the law harms the women it is supposed to help.

They must establish that the law, which requires women to make two separate trips to the abortion clinic, imposes an undue burden on Tennessee women. It's a subjective standard that has caused some waiting period laws to be struck down and others upheld, depending on the specific circumstances of the state.

Twenty-seven states currently require a waiting period between counseling and an abortion, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights. Tennessee is one of 14 states where pre-abortion counseling must take place in person, meaning a woman must make two separate trips to the clinic.

Suzanna Sherry is a professor of law at Vanderbilt University. She said courts have upheld waiting periods even when the evidence showed that they caused some women a financial hardship by forcing them to take time off work and find baby sitters and transportation not once but twice. One key issue is how many women are negatively affected.

More:
https://www.chron.com/news/texas/article/Tennessee-s-abortion-wait-period-law-faces-court-14455309.php