BATON ROUGE -- A federal judge has temporarily blocked enforcement of Louisiana's restrictive new abortion law, but lawyers disagree about whether his order covers doctors at all five of the state's abortion clinics or only those at three clinics whose lawsuit challenges the measure.
District Judge John deGravelles said the law can still take effect today, though authorities cannot penalize doctors and clinics until he holds a hearing on whether an order to block the law is needed while the case remains in court.
But Kyle Duncan, who represents state Health and Hospitals Secretary Kathy Kliebert, said the ruling covers only the lawsuit's plaintiffs.
The law requires doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges to a nearby hospital. The suit claims that doctors haven't had enough time to obtain the privileges and that the law likely would close all five abortion clinics.
A Section on 09/01/2014