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The Women’s Health Center of West Virginia, the state’s only abortion provider, has filed a lawsuit challenging the state’s ban of abortions during the coronavirus crisis.
The center has brought forward the abortion ban lawsuit not only on behalf of itself, but its physicians, staff, and patients.
The West Virginia abortion lawsuit asserts that the state’s ban of abortions during pre-viability periods of pregnancy is a constitutional violation.
The Women’s Health Center asserts that these abortions constitute essential healthcare, and therefore should not have been prohibited in the West Virginia executive order halting non-essential services to slow the spread of the coronavirus pandemic throughout the state.
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The abortion ban lawsuit notes that the executive order was implemented during the state’s emergency declaration in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Allegedly, the order prohibits “elective medical procedures” to help slow the spread of the virus. Additionally, the order states that these elective procedures should be prohibited in the interest of “conserving limited medical personnel, protective equipment, and other necessary medical equipment and supplies” needed to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
The Women’s Health Center asserts that the ban bars all medical procedures that are “not immediately medically necessary to preserve the patient’s life or long-term health.” In this ban, the state allegedly included all abortions taking place in the pre-viability stages of pregnancy.
However, the health center contests the determination that these abortion are inessential. Additionally, the health center asserts that the state governor is using the ban to effectively stop providing abortions and infringe on patients’ rights.
The Women’s Health Center of West Virginia explains that the state bars abortions after a certain point in a pregnancy. Allegedly, the emergency ban on abortions effectively blocks patients from accessing abortions if the point in their pregnancy legally allows them to get abortions in normal circumstances.
They note that the emergency ban affects abortions “unless the patient is at or near the legal limit for medication abortion in the state or at or near the point after which the patient could not obtain any abortion in the state.”
In effect, the ban infringes on patients’ constitutional right to access abortions, according to the abortion ban lawsuit.
Allegedly, the ban does not protect human health, as claimed, but further imperils it.
According to the Women’s Health Center, pregnancy increases patients’ need for medical care during the COVID-19 crisis.
The plaintiff argues that forcing a person to remain pregnant against their will requires them to have significantly more contact with the health care system than they would if their pregnancy were terminated.
Contact with the medical system increases the risk of exposure to the virus and increases the strain on medical facilities and personnel, says the West Virginia abortion ban lawsuit.
Additionally, the health center stresses that forcing patients to carry a pregnancy to term against their will threatens their overall wellbeing, puts their health at risk, and imposes economic burdens.
To support their claims that the state’s ban on inessential services should not include abortion, the Women’s Health Center of West Virginia explains that the right to an abortion has been protected by the constitution for more than 46 years.
The Supreme Court has repeatedly determined that obtaining a safe and legal abortion is “central to obtaining quality and respecting dignity, autonomy, and bodily integrity of all individuals,” the abortion ban lawsuit notes.
Moving on to discuss how the ban on abortions affect not only patients but medical providers, the health center explains that the ban makes clinicians unable to exercise their professional judgement to determine if an abortion should not be delayed.
The center explains that if an abortion is delayed, in certain circumstances, it may compromise a patient’s long-term health.
The Women’s Health Center of West Virginia is represented by Paul R.Q. Wilfson, Kimberly A. Parker, Albinas J. Prizgintas, and Alan E. Schoenfeld of Wilmer Cutler pickering Hale and Dorr LLP; Loree Stark of the ACLU of West Virginia Foundation; and by Elizabeth Watson, Susan Talcott Camp, and Brigitte Amiri of American Civil Liberties Union Foundation.
The Women’s Health Center of West Virginia COVID-19 Abortion Ban Lawsuit is Women’s Health Center of West Virginia v. Patrick Morrisey, et al., Case No. 2:20-cv-00293, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia.
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