The Center for Reproductive Rights filed the lawsuit on behalf of Tennessee abortion businesses. According to the court's majority opinion, they could not identify women who were harmed by having to wait 48 hours before they could get an abortion.
“None of the plaintiffs’ witnesses could name specific women who could not get an abortion because the waiting period pushed them past the cutoff date,” Judge Amul Thapar wrote for the majority in Bristol Regional Women’s Center v. Slatery. “None of the witnesses could identify specific women whose medical conditions caused complications or psychological harm during the waiting period.”
Uniquely, this waiting period law was in effect for five years before District Judge Bernard A. Friedman allowed the lawsuit to be resurrected. It was enforced from 2015 until Oct. 2020, which meant that both sides could use data collected during that period to argue their points in court. The appellate court noted that between 2015 and 2020, abortion rates remained steady.
“It is one thing to predict that the sky will fall tomorrow,” the ruling states. “It’s quite another thing to maintain that the sky fell five years ago for women seeking abortions when the numbers tell us otherwise.”
