Case: Planned Parenthood of Southwest & Central Florida v. Florida

On June 1, 2022, Planned Parenthood, the Center for Reproductive Rights, the ACLU, and a private law firm filed a lawsuit on behalf of several Florida healthcare providers challenging Sections 3 and 4 of House Bill 5 (HB 5) and asserting that it violated the fundamental privacy rights guaranteed by the Florida Constitution. HB 5, scheduled to go into effect on July 1, 2022, would ban abortion after fifteen weeks of pregnancy as dated from the first day of a woman’s last menstrual period. Any healthcare worker providing abortion care after fifteen weeks would be subject to felony criminal penalties, as well as adverse licensing and disciplinary action. Plaintiffs sought (1) a declaratory judgment that Sections 3 and 4 of HB 5 violated the rights of Plaintiffs, their patients, and Floridians, as protected by the Florida Constitution, and are therefore void, (2) a preliminary and permanent injunction prohibiting the enforcement, operation, and execution of Section 4 of HB 5 and the related definitions in Section 3(6) and 3(7) of HB 5, (3) an order requiring expungement of the unconstitutional language from the official records of the State, and (4) costs and attorneys’ fees. This case was filed in the Circuit Court of the Second Judicial Circuit in and for Leon County, Florida and was assigned to Judge John C. Cooper.

HB 5 went into effect on July 1, 2022, and in the week after, the Court granted a temporary injunction on July 5, 2022, prohibiting the enforcement and threat of enforcement of Section 4 of HB 5 and the related definitions in Section 3(6) and 3(7) of HB 5. Defendants were also enjoined from filing or pursuing any future suit or prosecution that sought to enforce HB 5 against conduct that takes place during the length of the injunction.

However, hours later, the Attorney General of Florida filed an appeal challenging the temporary injunction in the First District Court of Appeal, which automatically stayed the trial court’s injunction and reinstated HB 5. The trial court then denied a motion to vacate the automatic stay of the temporary injunction on July 12, 2022. Planned Parenthood subsequently filed an emergency motion with the appellate court to vacate the automatic stay of the preliminary injunction. On July 21, 2022, the appellate court denied that motion, concluding that plaintiffs had not proven that there would be irreparable harm if the fifteen-week ban were in effect. 

On August 10, 2022, plaintiffs asked the Florida Supreme Court to invoke its discretionary jurisdiction and review the July 21 opinion. Plaintiffs argued the decision was within the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction because it expressly and directly conflicted with a decision of the Supreme Court on the same question of law. On January 23, 2023, the Supreme Court accepted jurisdiction and set a briefing schedule.

On April 1, 2024 the Supreme Court of Florida issued its ruling and concluded that there was no basis under the Privacy Clause to invalidate the statute. The ruling overturned decades of precedent, receding from prior decisions like In re T.W., 551 So. 2d 1186 (Fla. 1989), N. Fla. Women’s Health & - 3 - Counseling Servs., Inc. v. State, 866 So. 2d 612 (Fla. 2003), and Gainesville Woman Care, LLC v. State, 210 So. 3d 1243 (Fla. 2017) in which the court held that the Privacy Clause guaranteed the right to receive an abortion through the end of the second trimester. The Court concluded that Planned Parenthood could not demonstrate a likelihood of success on the merits of its claim which alleged that the enacted statute was facially invalid under the Privacy Clause of the Florida Constitution. In their analysis, the Court determined that for Planned Parenthood to prevail they would have to have found that the public would have understood the principle embodied in the operative test of the Privacy Clause to encompass abortion when it was passed in 1980. In their analysis, the Court concluded that this was not the case. The Court’s ruling upheld the appellate court’s decision reversing temporary relief from the state’s 15-week abortion ban. 

As of April 5, 2024, the case is ongoing as it makes its way back to the lower court.