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Planned Parenthood and the Center for Reproductive Rights said they will continue to fight the waiting period. “The forced delay requirement has nothing to do with patient health,” Ashley Coffield, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and North Mississippi, said in the News Channel 5 report. The abortion industry argued that Tennessee’s policy harms “low-income and communities of color” even as pro-life advocates point out that while black Americans account for about 14 percent of the child-bearing population in the United States, 36 percent of abortions are black babies. “Abortion is health care and we at Planned Parenthood...

The case shows the judiciary is just as fractured as the rest of America, and leftist judges are defiantly ignoring Supreme Court and circuit precedent.On Friday, in a procedural oddity, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals voted to hear the initial appeal in Bristol v. Slatery as a full court, rather than allowing the case to proceed as normal before a three-judge panel. The case involved abortion, and the takeaways are two-fold: The judiciary is just as fractured as the rest of America, and leftist judges are defiantly ignoring Supreme Court and circuit precedent.To understand the significance of the Sixth...

CNA Staff, Oct 16, 2020 / 12:31 am MT (CNA).- A federal judge on Wednesday ruled unconstitutional a mandatory 48-hour waiting period for women seeking abortion in Tennessee, which had been in effect since 2015. In the legal challenge brought by Planned Parenthood and the pro-abortion Center for Reproductive Rights, Judge Bernard Friedman wrote that most women are already certain about their decision to have an abortion when they go in for their first appointment. The judge cited testimony from abortion providers that abortion does not increase risk of negative psychological outcomes. He said the regulation placed an “undue burden”...

A federal judge handed abortion rights supporters a win in Tennessee Friday by blocking a statewide order banning surgical abortions during the coronavirus pandemic. U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman, a President Reagan appointee, said in an opinion released Friday evening that abortion is a time-sensitive procedure, CNN reported. The ruling will allow procedural abortions to continue during the pandemic for now. "Delaying a woman's access to abortion even by a matter of days can result in her having to undergo a lengthier and more complex procedure that involves progressively greater health risks, or can result in her losing the right...

Michigan's ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional, a federal judge said Friday as he struck down a law that was widely embraced by voters a decade ago — the latest in a recent series of decisions overturning similar prohibitions across the country. U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman released his 31-page ruling exactly two weeks after a rare trial that mostly focused on the impact of same-sex parenting on children. He noted that supporters of same-sex marriage believe the Michigan ban was at least partly the result of animosity toward gays and lesbians.