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After temporarily blocking H.B. 3 in its entirety on April 21, 2022, Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings of the District Court for the Western District of Kentucky partially granted a Preliminary Injunction in May of 2022, prohibiting enforcement of H.B. 3 relating to reporting and registration programs not yet created by Kentucky’s Cabinet for Health and Family Services and as to the 15-week abortion ban. On May 27, 2022, the Kentucky Attorney General appealed this decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and on June 30, 2022, the appellate court remanded the case to the district court in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. That same day, the Kentucky Attorney General moved in the district court to dissolve the preliminary injunction, and we agreed as to the 15-week ban. The district court dissolved the preliminary injunction on July 14, 2022, only as to the 15-week ban, but kept the injunction in place for the other provisions of H.B. 3 that would require compliance via forms and regulations not yet available.

On August 30, 2022, the district court granted the Kentucky Attorney General’s Motion to Lift Preliminary Injunction in part, partially dissolving the Preliminary Injunction as to portions of the law for which compliance had become possible. While the Attorney General’s motion remained submitted to the court for consideration as it applies to the enjoined portions of H.B. 3., on September 19, 2022, the Attorney General appealed the district court’s decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Kentucky’s Cabinet for Health and Family Services has since made available the missing forms and regulations, making compliance possible and thus mooting the need for a continued preliminary injunction. Despite this, on February 22, 2023, the Sixth Circuit denied Plaintiffs’ motion to dismiss the appeal. The district court has since indicated that it would dissolve the Preliminary Injunction in its entirety if it retained jurisdiction.

The ACLU and the ACLU of Kentucky represent Intervenor Plaintiffs EMW Women’s Surgical Center, P.S.C., on behalf of itself, its staff, and its patients and Ernest W. Marshall, M.D., on behalf of himself and his patients. Plaintiffs Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawaii, Alaska, Indiana, and Kentucky, Inc., on behalf of itself, its staff, and its patients are represented by Planned Parenthood Foundation of America, Crowell & Moring LLP, and Kaplan Johnson Abate & Bird LLP.