[JURIST] The US District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee [official website], on Monday, lifted a temporary restraining order which limited the state in enforcing new abortion laws regarding licensing standards for clinics. The new laws require all abortion clinics performing 50 or more abortions annually to procure additional licensing requiring building and safety standards. Two clinics, the Women’s Center [official website] and the Bristol Regional Women’s Center [official website], claimed that due to the new laws, which went into effect on July 1st, they were unable to obtain said licenses in time to comply. Thus, the district court granted the restraining order to allow the clinics time to begin the process of being licensed. The order was lifted [AP report] in light of both the clinics as well as state licensing officials actively working toward licensing. The judge, however, has left open the possibility of revisiting the order in the near future.

Abortion [JURIST news archive] related issues have been a heated topic of discussion for the past several years in the US. In July Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker signed into law [JURIST report] the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, limiting the ability of a woman to seek an abortion more than 20 weeks into her pregnancy. In June the US Supreme Court granted a motion to stay [JURIST report], allowing over half of Texas’ 18 abortion clinics to stay open by temporarily blocking a law that would place stringent requirements on clinics requiring the majority of them to close. Also in June, a Kansas judge for the Shawnee County District Court blocked a law [JURIST report] that would have effectively banned most second-trimester abortions performed in the state. In May the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit struck down [JURIST report] portions of two Idaho abortion laws.