American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee

A federal appeals court upheld a lower court’s decision Friday to block a Tennessee abortion ban that was signed into law last year.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit agreed with Middle Tennessee District Judge William Campbell’s preliminary injunction, which blocked the law from taking effect shortly after it passed.

The law bans abortion at certain gestational ages beginning at six weeks. It also bans abortion based on a Down syndrome diagnosis or because of the gender or race of the fetus.

The provisions of the law are “constitutionally unsound,” Judge Martha Daughtrey wrote in the opinion.

“Although this circuit’s recent — and alarming — decisions have broadened the extent to which the government may impede a person’s constitutional right to choose whether to carry a pregnancy to term, the law remains clear that if a regulation is a substantial obstacle to a woman seeking an abortion, it is invalid,” the opinion reads. “We take note that state legislatures recently have passed more anti-abortion regulations than perhaps at any other time in this country’s history. However, this development is not a signal to the courts to change course.”

Hedy Weinberg, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee applauded the court’s decision.

“People should be able to make decisions for themselves about whether and when to become a parent, without politicians interfering,” Weinberg said. “ Today’s ruling is critical to Tennesseans’ ability to continue receiving safe and legal abortion care. We will continue to fight this unconstitutional law until it is struck down for good.”

Ashley Coffield, CEO of Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and North Mississippi, said the decision allows abortion to remain safe and legal in Tennessee despite a “national, coordinated attack on abortion rights.”

“We trust our patients to make their own fully informed reproductive healthcare decisions,” Coffield said. “We are thankful that the court ruled to protect that trust and ensure that we can continue to provide expert, compassionate abortion care in our state.”

A new federal suit has been filed against the office of the Shelby County Sheriff seeking emergency action on behalf of inmates currently infected or under threat of “severe injury or death” as a result of

the COVID-19 outbreak.

Filed Wednesday afternoon jointly by the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee; the American Civil Liberties Union; Just City; Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP; and attorneys Brice Timmons and Steve Mulroy, the suit is a federal class action lawsuit.

As a press release issued by the plaintiffs puts it, the suit “asks for identification of medically vulnerable individuals held at the jail and the immediate release of vulnerable people, most immediately those who are detained solely on the basis of their inability to satisfy a financial condition of pretrial release, or solely on the basis of a technical violation of probation or parole unless the county demonstrates that an individual poses a flight or safety risk.”

The statement notes that, “as of April 30, 192 people at the jail had tested positive for COVID-19, and one jail employee had died.” It further points out that “[s]tatewide, the greatest number of deaths from the virus have occurred in Shelby County” and that, according to the latest reports, “86 percent of inmates at the Shelby County Jail were there pretrial.”

The lawsuit alleges that the sheriff’s office is violating the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution as well as the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act. The plaintiffs warn that “an outbreak at the jail would spread widely in the community, draining the Memphis area of limited resources to fight the pandemic.”