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Sean D. Reyes
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AG Reyes Joins Brief Urging Court to Uphold People’s Right to Regulate Abortion

April 10, 2023

Today, Utah Attorney General Sean D. Reyes filed an amicus brief, along with 18 other Attorneys General, in the Supreme Court of Florida in the case of Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida v. State of Florida.

Planned Parenthood brought the underlying case, seeking injunctive relief against House Bill 5, which prohibits abortions after 15 weeks gestation, with exceptions for life, health, and fetal abnormality. They base their case on the Florida Constitution’s Privacy Clause.

Following the Dobbs decision, some states have adopted tighter restrictions while others maintained or embraced more permissive abortion laws. The brief notes, however, that “In some states, the decision to adopt a permissive abortion regime has been made not by the people or legislators, but by courts.”

The Attorneys General argue: “This raises serious problems. It imposes on the people a regime that they never embraced, puts courts at the center of a political and moral issue that they can never resolve, and undermines our democratic tradition. It replicates at the state level the problems that Dobbs recently dispensed with at the federal level.”

The brief continues, “Unless and until the people take the matter away from the legislature through a constitutional amendment that addresses abortion, this Court should let the legislature’s decisions stand.”

The Attorneys General urged the court to “make clear that the hard issue of abortion is for the people” and reject the injunctive relief against House Bill 5.

Attorneys General from Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, and West Virginia. 

Read the brief here.