In The Courts

A group of midwives and doctors filed a lawsuit in state court challenging actions by the Alabama Department of Public Health (ADPH), which imposed a de facto ban on freestanding birth centers throughout Alabama. Birth centers provide midwifery care to low-risk pregnant patients, a model of care that is proven to be safe and beneficial to patients. Despite that, ADPH took actions that forced one center to abruptly shut down in 2023 despite a perfect safety record, and then passed onerous regulations that would require birth centers to meet hospital-like standards, preventing birth centers from operating in the state. After hearing oral argument in late September 2023, the Circuit Court of Montgomery County granted our request for a Preliminary Injunction on September 30, 2023, preventing ADPH from refusing to timely license freestanding birth centers that comply with nationally-recognized safety standards for birth centers while litigation continues. In May 2025, the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit Court permanently blocking the Alabama Department of Public Health (ADPH) from regulating freestanding birth centers like hospitals and imposing onerous licensing rules that would have made it effectively impossible for these centers to provide evidence-based midwifery care in the state. The ruling ensures that plaintiffs Oasis Family Birthing Center in Birmingham and Alabama Birth Center in Huntsville, which have been safely operating for the past year, may continue providing midwifery care to pregnant Alabamians.

Guam Society of OBGYNs v. Guerrero is a case originally brought by the ACLU and local attorneys on Guam challenging a 1990 total ban on abortion that imposes criminal penalties on patients, providers and those who speak about abortion. In August of 1990, a federal district court judge for the District of Guam granted the ACLU’s motion for summary judgment and entered a permanent injunction against the ban. After appeals were exhausted, the case was closed. Over three decades later, on February 1, 2023, Guam Attorney General Douglas B. Moylan filed a Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(5) motion to vacate the permanent injunction and dismiss the case with prejudice. The ACLU and Guam local counsel opposed the motion, on behalf of the only remaining original plaintiff, and proposed intervenors — the only two providers of abortion in Guam, and Guam-based reproductive justice organization Famalao’an Rights. On March 24th, 2023, a federal district court denied the Attorney General’s request to vacate the permanent injunction. Attorney General Moylan then appealed this decision to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. On April 28, 2025, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an order dismissing Attorney General Moylan’s appeal as moot, in light of an October 2023 decision by the Guam Supreme Court holding that the ban had been legislatively repealed. As a result, the ban remains permanently enjoined and abortion remains legal in Guam.

The National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association (NFPRHA), the lead national advocacy organization for the Title X family planning program, and the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of the District of Columbia sued the Trump administration over its unlawful withholding of $65.8 million in Title X federal family planning grants. Title X is the country’s only dedicated federally funded family planning program that provides access to preventive care like birth control, cancer screening, and STI screening and treatment, with priority given to patients with low incomes. As a result of the Trump administration’s unlawful actions, at least seven states — California, Hawaii, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, and Utah — have been left without any Title X-funded family planning services, and approximately 842,000 people have lost access to Title X-funded care.

A group of health care providers filed a lawsuit in federal court to prevent Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall and district attorneys throughout the state from prosecuting those who assist Alabamians seeking to travel across state lines to access abortion care where abortion is legal. Attorney General Marshall had explicitly threatened that health care providers could face felony charges for assisting Alabamians seeking to travel out of state to obtain abortion where it is legal.