A state judge has just blocked a ban on abortions in the state of West Virginia from a law that pre-dates the initial Roe v Wade decision.
The judge claimed the law had already been repealed by laws that came after Roe and her decision allows abortions to continue in the state.
Here’s more via Newsmax:
A West Virginia judge has blocked officials from enforcing a 19th-century ban on abortions after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that recognized the right of women nationally to terminate pregnancies.
The decision Monday by Kanawha County Circuit Judge Tera Salango clears the way for the state’s lone abortion clinic to resume services, which it suspended out of fear of prosecution following the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 24 ruling.
Republican West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey’s office argued that the 1800s-era law could take effect once again, making it a felony to perform or have an abortion, with exceptions only to protect a pregnant woman’s life.
But Salango agreed with the clinic, Women’s Health Center of West Virginia, that the law was effectively repealed by more modern, post-Roe statutes that “hopelessly conflict” with the old one allowing for abortion up to the 20th week of pregnancy.
She called it unfair to allow the state to maintain conflicting laws on its books and that the clinic and its patients were suffering as a result.
“It simply does not matter if you are pro-choice or pro-life,” she said. “Every citizen in this state has a right to clearly know the laws under which they are expected to live.”
Morrisey in a statement said he would appeal the preliminary injunction to the state’s highest court, saying “current law on the books calls for the protection of life.”
I don’t know the legal details of the case, but it seems to me if that if a law that banned abortions had been nullified by the initial Roe v Wade decision, that it would now be in effect again since the Roe decision has been undone. And that any pro-abortion law passed after Roe that might have conflicted with it wouldn’t have the same effect any longer.
Hopefully AG Morrissey will have better luck with a higher court.