Whole Woman’s Health Alliance v. Rokita

Ct. of Appeals granted defendant’s motion to stay portions of Dist. Ct.’s injunction that precluded officials from enforcing: (1) physician-only law as applied to medication abortions; (2) second-trimester, hospital/ambulatory surgical center requirement; (3) in-person counseling requirement; (4) in-person physical examination requirement; and (5) telemedicine bar. All of contested provisions have been in force for years and have been upheld in prior U.S. Supreme Court decisions. While plaintiffs argued that developments in video-conferencing and improvements in medicine permit them to depart from said U.S. Supreme Court decisions, Ct. of Appeals found that U.S. Supreme Court alone has authority to modify its precedents. As such, existing precedents provided strong grounds for concluding that defendant is likely to prevail on instant contested issues. (Dissent filed.)