In May 2023, the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Nebraska filed a lawsuit on behalf of Nebraska abortion providers and their patients challenging a state law that bans physicians from providing abortion after 12 weeks of pregnancy and that, as of October 2023, will restrict health care available to trans youth. The ACLU has asked a state court in Nebraska to enter an emergency order blocking the law’s enforcement. The Court ruled that the two halves of L.B. 574 fall within the single subject of regulating health care, and thus the Court held that L.B. 574 does not violate the single-subject rule. Consequently, the abortion ban and gender-affirming care restrictions in L.B. 574 remain in effect. However, the Court did reject the state’s argument that the single-subject is a nonjusticiable political question.

This case involves a challenge to Utah Senate Bill (“S.B.”), a law that criminalizes nearly all abortions in Utah. In June 2022, Planned Parenthood Association of Utah (“PPAU”), one of only two abortion providers in the state, challenged S.B. 174 in Utah state court. It is currently litigating in the Utah Supreme Court to ensure the law remains blocked while courts consider the case. PPAU is represented in the appeal by the ACLU’s State Supreme Court Initiative, along with the ACLU of Utah, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and the Utah law firm Zimmerman Booher. In August 2024, in a major win for Utahns, the Court affirmed the lower court order blocking SB 174. As a result, abortion remains legal in Utah until 18 weeks of pregnancy.

Two Arizona physicians, the Arizona Medical Association, Arizona National Council of Jewish Women, and the Arizona National Organization of Women are challenging two abortion restrictions passed in Arizona in April 2021. One, the “reason” ban, is a ban on abortions based on a patient’s reason for seeking one, including when the abortion could be deemed due to a fetal condition or diagnosis. This ban targets pregnant people already facing complex considerations regarding fetal genetic conditions and drives a wedge between a patient and their provider.

On January 23, 2023, the Florida Supreme Court accepted a request by abortion providers to hear arguments in their case against House Bill 5 (HB 5), a ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy that threatens to put doctors in jail for providing essential care beyond that point. The move comes after several court rulings closed off meaningful legal avenues to block the law. While providers’ request for the court to hear arguments in the case was granted, the justices declined to immediately block HB 5 while the lawsuit proceeds, leaving the ban in place for now.

The ACLU and attorneys at Lynch, Cox, Gilman & Goodman P.S.C. filed the federal lawsuit aimed at blocking unnecessary and unconstitutional state laws to prevent the closure of the state's only abortion clinic, EMW Women's Surgical Center. In March 2017, the state threatened to revoke the clinic's license, alleging that the clinic’s agreements with a hospital and ambulance service contained technical deficiencies, even though the state approved those same agreements in renewing EMW’s license in 2016. Based on these alleged deficiencies, the state claimed that EMW was not incompliance with state law requiring abortion providers to have a transfer agreement with a local hospital and a transport agreement with an ambulance service.