(LifeSiteNews) — The Indiana Supreme Court ruled almost unanimously Thursday to reject Planned Parenthood’s bid to transfer jurisdiction in its challenge to the state’s abortion ban, allowing a lower court ruling upholding the law to stand.
Indiana law bans most abortions throughout pregnancy, with exceptions for rape, incest, or “medical emergencies” in the first 10 weeks or fetal anomalies “incompatible with sustained life” up to 20 weeks. It also requires medical care for any babies who survive attempted abortions. That law has stopped the vast majority of abortions, yet the rest persist due to mail-order abortion pills, which the state legislature has so far been unable to quash.
The Indiana Lawyer reports that after the Monroe Circuit Court ruled against Planned Parenthood’s challenge to the law in September 2024, and the Indiana Court of Appeals rejected them in August 2025, the abortion giant requested the case be transferred to the state’s highest court, but the justices rejected the request on May 14, with everyone but Justice Christopher Goff concurring.
“This means the Court of Appeals’ ruling upholding our pro-life law stands firm,” responded Indiana Republican Attorney General Todd Rokita. “Thanks to this decision, our protections for life remain constitutional and will be enforced. Like we’ve said before, no matter how many times Planned Parenthood tries to sue and push forward their culture of death, we will continue fighting for mothers, fathers, and the unborn.”
READ: Supreme Court allows mail delivery of abortion pill to continue
“We’re deeply disappointed that this law will continue to put pregnant people’s health at risk through narrow exceptions that fail to reflect the realities of pregnancy and medical care,” lamented the Indiana chapter of the far-left American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). “Hoosiers deserve better than political interference in these deeply personal health care decisions.”
Both lower courts had found, per IL, that the plaintiffs “failed to identify any specific physical or mental health condition that would be protected by the Indiana Article 1, Section 1 of the Constitution but not under Indiana’s abortion ban.”
While the outcome is a victory for Indiana’s pro-life protections, a separate challenge remains pending, stemming from two plaintiffs who assert restricting abortions violates their “religious beliefs” in “bodily autonomy,” life not beginning until birth, and fetuses being “part of the body of the mother.” The state has been enjoined from enforcing the abortion ban against those specific plaintiffs, but not from enforcing it generally. Oral arguments before the Indiana Supreme Court begin in September.
Thirteen states ban most abortions starting at conception; another five ban it once a fetal heartbeat can be detected (around 6 weeks), with additional states imposing a range of later restrictions.
But the abortion lobby works feverishly to preserve abortion “access” via deregulated interstate distribution of abortion pills, legal protection and financial support of interstate abortion travel, constructing new abortion facilities near borders shared by pro-life and pro-abortion states, making liberal states sanctuaries for those who want to evade or violate the laws of more pro-life neighbors, and enshrining abortion “rights” in state constitutions, whether via activist lawsuits or state constitutional amendments.