Whole Woman's Health Alliance v. Hill

493 F.Supp.3d 694

WHOLE WOMAN'S HEALTH ALLIANCE, All-Options, Inc., Jeffrey Glazer M.D., Plaintiffs,

v.Curtis T. HILL, Jr. Attorney General of the State of Indiana, in his official capacity, Kristina Box Commissioner of the Indiana State Department of Health, in her official capacity, John Strobel M.D., President of the Indiana Medical Licensing Board of Indiana, in his official capacity, Kenneth P. Cotter St. Joseph County Prosecutor, in his official capacity and as representative of a class of all Indiana prosecuting attorneys with authority to prosecute felony and misdemeanor offenses, Defendants.

Indiana Department of Correction, Marion Superior Court, Interested Parties.

No. 1:18-cv-01904-SEB-MJD

United States District Court, S.D. Indiana, Indianapolis Division.

Signed October 9, 2020

Amanda Lauren Allen, Pro Hac Vice, Athanasia Charmani, Juanluis Rodriguez, Pro Hac Vice, Mollie M. Kornreich, Pro Hac Vice, Sneha Shah, Pro Hac Vice, Stephanie Toti, Lawyering Project, Erin A. Simmons, Michael Leo Pomeranz, Pro Hac Vice, Michael M. Powell, Pro Hac Vice, Michelle Honor, Pro Hac Vice, Morgan Petkovich, Paul M. Eckles, Pro Hac Vice, Attorney at Law, New York, NY, Dipti Singh, Lawyering Project, Los Angeles, CA, Kathrine D. Jack, Law Office of Kathrine Jack, Greenfield, IN, Melissa C. Shube, Pro Hac Vice, Lawyering Project, Washington, DC, Rupali Sharma, Lawyering Project, Portland, ME, for Plaintiffs.

Christopher Michael Anderson, Diana Lynn Moers, Kian J. Hudson, Robert Austin Rowlett, Thomas M. Fisher, Indiana Attorney General, Julia Catherine Payne, Indiana Office of the Attorney General, Indianapolis, IN, Erik S. Jaffe, Pro Hac Vice, Gene C. Schaerr, Pro Hac Vice, James A. Heilpern, Pro Hac Vice, Joshua J. Prince, Pro Hac Vice, Stephen S. Schwartz, Pro Hac Vice, Schaerr Jaffe LLP, Washington, DC, for Defendants.

Benjamin C. Ellis, Mollie Ann Slinker, Indiana Attorney General, Indianapolis, IN, for Interested Party Indiana Department of Correction.

Derek R. Molter, Ice Miller LLP, Richard G. McDermott, Office of Corporation Counsel City of Indianapolis, Indianapolis, IN, for Interested Party Marion Superior Court.

ORDER GRANTING IN PART AND DENYING IN PART DEFENDANTS’ MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

SARAH EVANS BARKER, JUDGE

Plaintiffs Whole Woman's Health Alliance, All-Options, Inc., and Jeffrey Glazer, M.D. (collectively, "Plaintiffs") have sued Defendants Curtis T. Hill, Jr., Attorney General of Indiana; Kristina Box, M.D., Commissioner of the Indiana State Department of Health; John Strobel, M.D., President of the Medical Licensing Board of Indiana; and Kenneth P. Cotter, St. Joseph County Prosecutor ("the State") under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, challenging as unconstitutional a wide array of Indiana's statutory and regulatory restrictions on providing and obtaining abortions. More specifically, Plaintiffs allege that Indiana's legal regime for the regulation of abortion violates the Substantive Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (Count I), the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (Count II), and the Freedom of Speech Clause of the First Amendment (Count III). Plaintiffs have also challenged various statutes as unconstitutionally vague in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's Procedural Due Process Clause (Count IV). Now before the Court is the State's Motion for Summary Judgment, [Dkt. 213].¹ For the reasons stated herein, we grant in part and deny in part the State's Motion.

Background

Among the liberties protected by the United States Constitution is the freedom from state-required motherhood. Roe v. Wade , 410 U.S. 113, 152–53, 93 S.Ct. 705, 35 L.Ed.2d 147 (1973). In bringing this lawsuit, Plaintiffs—comprised of abortion providers and nonprofit intermediaries—challenge a broad array of Indiana's statutory and regulatory restrictions on providing and obtaining abortions as infringing upon that freedom. The reach of Plaintiffs’ challenges is wide, ranging from assertions that Indiana law places futile regulatory burdens on healthcare providers who administer abortion care, to claims that Indiana mandates the distribution of misleading information relating to the mental and physical health risks of abortion as a condition of a woman's informed consent, to arguments that the State unreasonably restricts minors from accessing abortions. Plaintiffs challenge no fewer than twenty-five sections and subsections of the Indiana abortion code and their accompanying regulations as being facially violative of the Fourteenth Amendment's Substantive Due Process Clause. Plaintiffs also assert violations of the Fourteenth Amendment's Procedural Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses and the First Amendment.

Plaintiffs have cast their wide net in this lawsuit in an effort to reduce Indiana's burdensome scheme of regulations and prohibitions governing abortion services, which have grown increasingly cumbersome in the decades following Roe v. Wade . They allege these controls impose individual as well as combined effects, resulting in the imposition of substantial obstacles in the paths of women seeking abortion services in Indiana. Plaintiffs’ overarching purpose is to "return [Indiana] to a system of reasonable and medically appropriate abortion regulations by striking down Indiana's unduly burdensome abortion laws." [Comp. ¶ 9].

As explained in detail below, the facial challenges to the constitutionality of several of these statutes ignore or seek to contravene well-established legal precedents, thereby entitling the State to summary judgment. The constitutionality of other statutes, however, is less clear and less fulsomely litigated. Our review of the constitutionality of these statutes and regulations in the context of the Substantive Due Process Clause requires a consideration of "the burdens a law imposes on abortion access together with the benefits those laws confer." Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt ¸ ––– U.S. ––––, 136 S. Ct. 2292, 2309, 195 L.Ed.2d 665 (2016).

Procedural Background

On May 31, 2019, we issued a Preliminary Injunction, which Order was thereafter modified on October 1, 2019. While Plaintiffs’ Complaint advances facial challenges to Indiana's abortion statutes, the motion for preliminary injunction had sought specific relief from various procedural prerequisites to licensure relative to the opening and operation of an abortion clinic by Whole Woman's Health Alliance ("WWHA"),² located in South Bend. We held that Plaintiffs had shown a likelihood of prevailing on the merits of their claim that those licensing requirements had been applied in an unconstitutional fashion. We held that the Indiana State Department of Health ("Health Department") had unconstitutionally denied WWHA's application for licensure, which decision had thereafter been affirmed by the Health Department's three-member Appeals Panel, its final decisionmaker. Though WWHA had filed a second application, it believed its efforts to be futile following additional procedural roadblocks erected by the Health Department. Plaintiffs sought injunctive relief in our Court to circumvent the bureaucratic stalemate.

Following expedited briefings and oral arguments, we granted Plaintiffs’ motion for preliminary injunctive relief. Specifically, Plaintiffs had established a likelihood of success on the merits on their claim that Indiana's requirements of licensure for clinics providing medication abortions (that is, those abortions induced by ingesting certain medications) had been applied to WWHA in a manner that was violative of the Fourteenth Amendment's Substantive Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses. This ruling was affirmed with procedural modifications by the Seventh Circuit. The modified preliminary injunction requires the Health Department to treat WWHA's clinic (hereinafter, the "South Bend Clinic") as provisionally licensed until a final judgment could issue on the merits of this case. The South Bend Clinic thus commenced and continues to provide medication abortions up to ten weeks following gestation.

Given that Plaintiffs’ request for preliminary injunctive relief was unrelated to other allegations in their Complaint,³ the parties’ extensive summary judgment briefing now before us does not include the issues resolved in connection with the preliminary injunction. Instead, the State's motion for summary judgment instead centers on Plaintiffs’ challenges to the facial validity of the licensure requirements and various other statutes.

Procedural Disputes

I. Dr. Glazer's Standing to Litigate the Complaint

Jeffrey Glazer, M.D. is the lead plaintiff in this action. His credentials and background are summarized below.⁴ The State challenges Dr. Glazer's standing as well as that of the nonprofit plaintiff, WWHA. The requirements of standing are reflected in well-established legal principles and authorities. A party invoking federal jurisdiction must demonstrate "(1) injury in fact; (2) a causal connection between the injury and the challenged conduct, i.e., traceability; and (3) that it is likely, as opposed to merely speculative, that the injury will be redressed by a favorable decision." Plotkin v. Ryan , 239 F.3d 882, 884 (7th Cir. 2001). Plaintiffs argue that the issue of standing has previously been resolved in our March 28, 2019 Order denying the State's motion to dismiss on this basis.⁵ There, the State contended that Plaintiffs had not alleged an injury-in-fact redressable by a favorable ruling. We held:

"Where at least one plaintiff has standing, jurisdiction is secure and the court will adjudicate the case whether the additional plaintiffs have standing or not." Korte v. Sebelius , 735 F.3d 654, n.8 (7th Cir. 2013) (alteration omitted) (quoting Ezell v. City of Chicago , 651 F.3d 684, 696 n.7 (7th Cir. 2011) ). We therefore restrict our discussion to Glazer's standing. SeeEzell , 651 F.3d at 696 n.7 ("The district court's emphasis on the organizational plaintiffs’ standing is puzzling. As we have noted, it's

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