Both sides agreed to convene in mid-July to discuss the implications on the Florida ban resulting from the U.S. Supreme Court decision in CRLP's challenge to a comparable Nebraska ban. The Supreme Court is expected to issue a decision on the constitutionality of the ban in late June. Further proceedings in this case will be determined at that time.

"The state's concession to block this extreme law will permit women to make personal medical decisions without government intervention," said Janet Crepps, a staff attorney with CRLP, which represents abortion providers and their patients in the case.

A preliminary injunction hearing was scheduled for today, 5 days after Judge Lenard temporarily blocked the law. In a 28-page order, she wrote "the Act's sweeping prohibition of at least five currently practiced abortion procedures places an undue burden and a substantial obstacle on a woman's right to choose to terminate her pregnancy…clearly prior to viability."

CRLP asserts that the language in the Florida law is so broad that it would prohibit abortion early in pregnancy -- beginning as early as 11 weeks of pregnancy -- and subject doctors to criminal prosecution for providing the safest medical care. Legal challenges have been mounted in 21 of the 31 states that have passed such abortion bans. In 20 states the laws have been blocked or severely limited.

U.S. District Judge Donald L. Graham struck down a similar Florida law in 1998, criticizing its inadequate protection for the health and life of the woman. In his decision he stated, "Florida may not place its interest in fetal life above its interest in the life or health of a woman at any time during the course of pregnancy." Legislators did not include a health exception, provided only a qualified life exception, and failed to make other changes necessary to render it constitutional.

For more information on abortion bans, including CRLP's case in the U.S. Supreme Court challenging Nebraska's abortion ban, see our website at www.crlp.org/special.html.