Abortion Provider’s Standing Confirmed in Six-Week Law Challenge

A Planned Parenthood affiliate can sue South Carolina to invalidate a law banning abortions at about six weeks because it may properly assert its patients’ constitutional rights, the Fourth Circuit said Tuesday.

A long line of U.S. Supreme Court precedent confirms that abortion providers have third-party standing to vindicate patients whose constitutional right to abortion allegedly is being infringed by state law, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit said.

Additionally, Planned Parenthood South Atlantic may sue under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the court said. A litigant found to have standing is presumed to have a cause of ...