Planned Parenthood Association of Utah Challenges State’s Attempt to Transfer Abortion Ban Case to Unconstitutional Three-Judge Panel Court
February 26, 2026 6:30 pm
SALT LAKE CITY — Today, Planned Parenthood Association of Utah (PPAU) filed an Emergency Petition for Extraordinary Relief with the Utah Supreme Court to stop the State of Utah’s attempt to transfer PPAU’s challenge to the near-total abortion ban to an unconstitutional three-judge panel. The State’s request to transfer to such a panel comes after H.B. 392 and S.J.R. 5 were passed by the Legislature and signed into law by Governor Cox on February 13, 2026. The law purports to allow the State (and only the State) to move all civil cases in which the State is a party to a newly created three-judge panel.
Following a legal challenge brought by PPAU, S.B. 174, Utah’s near-total abortion ban, has been blocked by court order since June 2022. The law, initially passed in 2020, took effect briefly in 2022 after the U.S. Supreme Court decision Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, and seeks to outlaw abortion in Utah at any point in pregnancy — with only extremely limited exceptions — and to criminalize health care providers. In August 2024, the Utah Supreme Court upheld the district court’s decision to grant a preliminary injunction, allowing abortion to remain legal in Utah up to 18 weeks.
—This reconfiguring of the judiciary is yet another example of how the supermajority of the Legislature and Governor Cox will change the rules whenever they fear that the laws they pass – session after session – violate the constitutional rights of Utahns. They clearly want to be not only legislators and the executive, but judge and jury too. You need only look at how hastily this law was enacted to see their utter disregard for judicial independence and the state constitution. Utahns deserve the right to make decisions about their bodies and futures, and the Utah Constitution protects their ability to do so. We will keep fighting to protect Utahns from this ongoing government overreach.
Shireen Ghorbani, President & CEO, Planned Parenthood Association of Utah
Planned Parenthood Association of Utah is represented by attorneys at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Cohne Kinghorn, Zimmerman Booher, and the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah Foundation, Inc.
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