Law professor addresses legal challenges for abortions in Louisiana

BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - The Fair Fight Initiative (FFI) views both the Supreme Court’s decision and Louisiana’s trigger law that bans abortion without exceptions for rape and incest as illegitimate and unconstitutional.

“Anyone who provides an abortion, assists in providing an abortion is looking at 10-15 years in imprisonment,” said attorney Christopher Murell.

The announcement from the FFI raises the question as to whether or not they will have any success in fighting these potential legal battles.

“We are announcing today that anyone that is prosecuted for essentially breaking the law, we will be there to represent them,” said attorney Ron Haley.

LSU law professor Ken Levy and WAFB’s Chris Rosato had a conversation about where this could be heading.

“I think they’re well within their rights to do that. I mean the Supreme Court has said several times, for better or for worse, that money is speech and if this is how fair fight wants to spend its money that’s it’s prerogative,” said Levy.

In their conversation, Levy was asked what legal grounds they would have to work with should this get taken up in court. The attorneys Tuesday said no one has reached out to them for representation yet, but they expect someone will soon.

“Well, I look at it more as, if anybody wants to engage in civil disobedience, that was just their way of saying if you violate these laws that we don’t think are just then we’ll represent you. But they’re not necessarily admitted guilt in advance for any of their clients,” Levy explained.

Rosato and Levy also talked about what kind of cases Levy expects to see in the courts.

“There’s going to be all sorts of challenges. You’re going to see doctors and mothers who are being investigated and they’re going to challenge even the right of the state to investigate them. They’re going to be charged with crimes, they’re going to challenge convictions for those crimes. You’re also going to see many women say, ‘hey look, if this is an unborn child at fertilization, I want childcare benefits starting from day one,” Levy added.

The state’s trigger law is paused until July 8 when Attorney General Jeff Landry battles this out in court with the New Orleans judge that issued the restraining order.

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