As the fate of abortion law remains undecided in Utah, lawmakers including a Summit County representative sent cease-and-desist letters to providers, funding groups and their lawyers. Another member of the Utah House representing the Wasatch Back questioned that move.
Rep. Kera Birkeland, whose district includes most of unincorporated Summit County, and Rep. Karianne Lisonbee of District 14 delivered letters threatening abortion care providers with prosecution. The letters, dated September 15, included the official Utah House of Representatives letterhead and were co-signed by 20 other Utah lawmakers.
The letters were based on a Utah trigger law to criminalize abortion in most cases, following the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to allow states to do so. However, that ban in Utah is under preliminary injunction, issued by Third District Court Judge Andrew Stone on July 11, and is currently not in effect.
Mike Kohler, who represents District 54, which covers Park City and Wasatch County, called Birkeland’s and Lisonbee’s actions “pre-emptive.”
“I'll withhold my judgment until I talk to them,” Kohler said, “but the way I understood it, and the way it seems rational, is that once the stay was put in place, there's really not much that's going to change until the courts finished, and I thought [it was] probably a little bit presumptive to say that they could affect it that way.”
In the letters, Birkeland and Lisonbee promised to introduce a bill during the 2023 legislative session to “automatically revoke the licenses of any medical professional who violates the trigger ban.” They said that included abortions performed while the preliminary injunction is in place.
The letters targeted Planned Parenthood Association of Utah, Wasatch Women’s Center, Utah Abortion Fund and two national abortion organizations. They also addressed Utah lawyers representing Planned Parenthood and one doctor, according to reporting by KUER.
“I feel bad that it went down the way it did, but I've got to talk to them and see what they were thinking,” Kohler said. “I think once the stay was in place, everything had to be left alone till the court’s done.”
Although the Utah trigger law banning abortion is under injunction, that doesn’t affect a separate abortion ban after 18 weeks of pregnancy statewide. That law went into effect following the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade.
