Legislative By the end of the 1800s, Louisiana was the only state lacking a
therapeutic exception in its legislative ban on abortions. In the 19th century, abortion bans by state legislatures centered on protecting the life of the mother given the number of deaths caused by abortions. State governments viewed themselves as looking out for the lives of their citizens. An attorney for the
Center for Reproductive Rights, who opposes the law, stated that it is an attempt to drive abortion providers out of practice, and that every completed abortion imposes
strict liability under the law because abortion necessarily involves damage to the unborn child. On June 19, 2006, ex-Governor
Kathleen Blanco signed a
trigger ban on most forms of abortion, with the exception of threats to the life or permanent health of the mother. Although supporting exceptions for cases involving rape and incest, she stated that the lack of their inclusion was not sufficient grounds to veto the law. The law would allow for the prosecution of any person who performed, or aided someone in performing, an abortion. It included penalties up to 10 years imprisonment and a fine of $100,000. In the 2000s, Louisiana passed a law banning abortions after 22 weeks based on the belief that fetuses can feel pain at that point in a pregnancy. In 2007, Louisiana was one of 23 states to have a detailed abortion-specific informed-consent requirement. By law, abortion providers in Louisiana were required to perform an ultrasound on a pregnant woman prior to providing her with abortion services, despite the fact that it serves no medical purpose at that point of
gestation. In 2011, Louisiana became one of six states to introduce a bill (which failed to pass) banning abortion in almost all cases. In 2013, the state's
Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP) law applied to private doctor offices in addition to abortion clinics. In 2014, the state passed a law that required it to maintain a database of women who had abortions in the state, and the type of abortion performed. A second law passed in 2014, Act 620, was modeled after an earlier Texas law requiring that any doctor performing abortions also have admittance privileges at an authorized hospital within a 30-mile radius of the abortion clinic, among other new requirements. At the time the law was passed, only one doctor met the required criteria, effectively leaving only one legal abortion clinic in the state. The state had a law on the books in August 2018 that would be triggered if
Roe v. Wade was overturned. At the time the bill passed, 15% of the state legislators were female, with only two female representatives voting against the bill. In 2020, Louisiana voters passed a measure to amend the state constitution to omit any language implying that a woman has a right to get an abortion or that any abortion that does occur should be funded. The bill faced bipartisan opposition from lawmakers and some anti-abortion groups. The bill was ultimately amended to remove criminal penalties for abortion seekers, and was and signed into law by Governor
John Bel Edwards.
Judicial The
US Supreme Court's decision in 1973's
Roe v. Wade ruling meant the state could no longer regulate abortion in the first trimester. While the Texas law was being challenged, the Louisiana law was challenged by abortion clinics and doctors in the state in
June Medical Services, LLC v. Gee; while the District Court ordered an injunction on the law, the
Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed this decision, allowing the law to come in effect later in 2014. The plaintiffs petitioned the Supreme Court, which granted an emergency stay of the Fifth Circuit's order. The court was pending the result of the pending Texas litigation in ''Whole Woman's Health
. June Medical Services
was remanded back to District Court, which found the law to be unconstitutional under Whole Woman's Health''. The Fifth Circuit reversed the District's finding and prepared to allow the law to be reintroduced by February 4, 2019, differentiating the case from the one in Texas as they found the physician had not taken any steps to try to qualify for this allowance. The plaintiffs again petitioned the Supreme Court for an emergency stay of the Fifth Circuit's decision. Justice
Samuel Alito granted the stay of the law until February 7, 2019, stating that the Court needed more time to evaluate the request and had made no merits on the ruling of the case. On February 7, 2019, the Supreme Court ruled 5–4, with Justice
John Roberts joining the liberal Justices, in reversing the Firth Circuit's order, effectively preventing the law from going into effect. The Supreme Court overturned
Roe v. Wade in ''
Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization'', later in 2022 which returned the legislative decision to the individual states.
Clinical Between 1982 and 1992, the number of abortion clinics in Louisiana decreased by one, going from eighteen in 1982 to seventeen in 1992. In 2014, there were five abortion clinics in the state. In 2014, 92% of the parishes in the state lacked an abortion clinic, leaving 63% of women between the ages of 15 and 44 without access to an abortion clinic. In 2017, there were two
Planned Parenthood clinics, neither of which offered abortion services, in Louisiana whose population of women aged 15–49 at the time was 1,089,684. North Dakota, Wyoming, Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky and West Virginia were the only six states as of July 21, 2017, that did not have a Planned Parenthood clinic offering abortion services. By 2017, there were only three clinics left. In 2022, the three remaining abortion clinics in Louisiana closed following the decision in ''
Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization''. The state now has no abortion clinics. In 2025, Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast announced it would shut down due to funding cuts. Consequently, it closed two clinics in Texas and the two in Louisiana. The state now has no Planned Parenthood clinics. == Statistics ==