Gianforte signs 15-week abortion ban
A press secretary for the attorney general’s office did not respond to questions Monday about how Attorney General Austin Knudsen plans to enforce the dilation and evacuation ban, House Bill 721.
As written, the bill bars “dismemberment abortion,” a nonmedical term that the legislation defines in part as “the use or prescription of any instrument, medicine, drug, or other substance or device” to intentionally terminate pregnancies and the “insertion of grasping instruments” to remove a fetus. The bill makes exceptions for abortions used to treat an ectopic pregnancy or “a separation procedure performed because of a medical emergency and prior to the ability of the unborn child to survive outside of the womb with or without artificial support.” Medical practitioners found to have violated the law, the bill says, are guilty of a felony and could be subject to a $50,000 fine and up to 10 years in prison.
Representatives of Planned Parenthood of Montana, one of the state’s abortion providers impacted by the new law, framed HB 721 as contradictory to the state Constitution and medical best practices in a Tuesday statement. The group filed a motion for a temporary restraining order shortly after 2:00 p.m., asking Helena District Court Judge Mike Menahan to prevent the state and the attorney general’s office from enforcing the law.
“Absent emergency injunctive relief, Montanans will be irreparably harmed by denial of their constitutionally protected right to access pre-viability abortion care and will suffer irreversible health consequences,” the filing said.