Case updates this week:

Thursday April 4th: The Court of Appeals of Indiana almost entirely upheld a preliminary injunction blocking Indiana’s abortion law from being applied against certain religious individuals in Individual Members of Medical Licensing Board of Indiana v. Anonymous Plaintiff 1. Plaintiffs, members of a group called Hoosier Jews for Choice and five anonymous women, challenged Indiana’s restrictive 2022 law criminalizing most abortions based on the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). The court held that the issue was justiciable because the group Hoosier Jews for Choice was a valid associational plaintiff for standing, and the plaintiffs established ripeness by showing that they were altering their current behavior based on a fear of not being able to get an abortion in the future.

The court also held that the plaintiffs had shown they were likely to succeed on the merits of their RFRA claim because they had shown that they had sincerely held religious beliefs that would require them to get abortions that were otherwise illegal under the ban, and that the state’s abortion ban was not narrowly tailored enough given the medical exemptions currently allowed. The appeals court remanded to the lower court to clarify that the preliminary injunction only applies for plaintiffs who would have valid RFRA claims if they challenged the ban.