Rabbi Hannah Goldstein, of Washington, D.C., holding a sign during a pro-choice protest outside the U.S. Supreme Court in the wake of recent legislation passed in Alabama banning abortions, on May 21, 2019. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM
Abortion rights groups were cheering the feminist language in a Wednesday ruling from a federal judge throwing out a state law requiring women to wait 48 hours—and hear opposition-inspired counseling—in order to receive care.
“Defendants’ suggestion that women are overly emotional and must be required to cool off or calm down before having a medical procedure they have decided they want to have, and that they are constitutionally entitled to have, is highly insulting and paternalistic—and all the more so given that no such waiting periods apply to men,” U.S. District Senior Judge Bernard Friedman of the Eastern District of Michigan said in a 136-page order. Friedman was sitting in by special designation on the case in the Middle District of Tennessee, Nashville Division. He enjoined the state from enforcing a law that has been in effect in Tennessee since 2015.
