Alaska court strikes down abortion law limiting Medicaid funding
[JURIST] The Alaska Superior Court [official website] struck down [order, PDF] a state law Thursday, finding that it would have placed unconstitutional regulations on Medicaid coverage of abortions to the detriment of low-income women. The case [ACLU case updates] was filed by Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest along with the Center for Reproductive Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union [advocacy websites] in 2013 and alleged [complaint, PDF] that the state's regulation restricting Medicaid abortions put an unfair burden on pregnant low-income women. The court found that the law violated the equal protection guarantees of the Alaska Constitution [text] by imposing criteria for Medicaid coverage of abortions not imposed on any other service covered by Medicaid.
Abortion related issues have been a heated topic of discussion for the past several years in the US. Earlier in August the US District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee lifted [JURIST report] a temporary restraining order that limited the state in enforcing new abortion laws regarding licensing standards for clinics. In July Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker signed into law [JURIST report] the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, limiting the ability of a woman to seek an abortion more than 20 weeks into her pregnancy. In June the US Supreme Court granted a motion to stay [JURIST report], allowing more than half of Texas' 18 abortion clinics to stay open by temporarily blocking a law that would place stringent requirements on clinics requiring the majority of them to close. Also in June a Kansas judge for the Shawnee County District Court blocked a law [JURIST report] that would have effectively banned most second-trimester abortions performed in the state. In May the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit struck down [JURIST report] portions of two Idaho abortion laws.
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