In Blackmon v. State of Tennessee, (TN Chanc. Ct., Oct. 17, 2024), a Tennessee state Chancery Court issued a temporary injunction barring the state from instituting disciplinary proceedings against plaintiff physicians for performing abortions in any of four specified medical situations. The court found that plaintiffs are likely to succeed in their challenges under the right to life, liberty or property and the equal protection clauses of the state constitution and in their vagueness challenge. The court said in part:
The question remains ... whether the Medical Necessity Exception, as currently written, serves a compelling state interest and is narrowly tailored to achieve that goal. Given the range of interpretations proffered through the expert declarations ..., the Court finds that the issue of which conditions, and the timing of when they present and escalate to life-threatening conditions, constitute medical emergencies within the Medical Necessity Exception is demonstrably unclear, notwithstanding the “reasonable medical judgment’ of the physician standard set forth in the Exception. This lack of clarity is evidenced by the confusion and lack of consensus within the Tennessee medical community on the circumstances requiring necessary health- and life-saving abortion care. The evidence presented underscores how serious, difficult, and complex these issues are and raises significant questions as to whether the Medical Necessity Exception is sufficiently narrow to serve a compelling state interest....
Plaintiff Patients, as pregnant women, claim they are similarly situated to non-pregnant women who seek and are in need of emergency medical care. Yet because of the criminal abortion statute, pregnant women are treated differently than non-pregnant women because their access to emergency medical care is restricted....
While the court enjoined disciplinary proceedings, it held that it lacked jurisdiction to enjoin enforcement of the state's criminal abortion statute. The Hill reports on the decision. [Thanks to Thomas Rutledge for the lead.]
