Opinion ID: 4433771
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Other Injunction Requirements

Text: Planned Parenthood showed a suﬃcient likelihood of succeeding on the merits to support the district court’s injunction. The district court also did not abuse its discretion in concluding that Planned Parenthood satisfied the other requirements for a preliminary injunction. First, Planned Parenthood demonstrated a likelihood of irreparable harm. In applying the undue burden standard to a restriction on abortion, it is hard to separate the merits from irreparable harm. As discussed above, the record supports the conclusion that young women would suﬀer irreparable harm if injunctive relief were denied. See Doe v. Mundy, 514 F.2d 1179, 1183 (7th Cir. 1975) (enforcement of hospital policy would violate right to privacy and cause irreparable harm); see also Christian Legal Society v. Walker, 453 F.3d 853, 867 (7th Cir. 2006) (presumption of irreparable harm applies to First Amendment violations); 11A Charles Alan Wright & Arthur R. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 2948.1 (3d ed.) (“When an alleged deprivation of a constitutional right is involved, such as the right to free speech or freedom of religion, most courts hold that no further showing of irreparable injury is necessary.”). Planned Parenthood also does not have an adequate legal remedy. The State has not argued otherwise. Instead, it argues that a pregnant minor seeking a judicial bypass could challenge an adverse notification ruling by raising a constitutional challenge in an expedited appeal after the bypass proceeding. Given the time pressures at work in such cases, we reject that alternative as an insuﬃcient answer to the burdens here. See Fleet Wholesale Supply Co. v. Remington Arms Co., 846 F.2d 1095, 1098 (7th Cir. 1988) (irreparable injury implies inadequacy of 34 No. 17-2428 legal remedies); see also 11A Wright & Miller § 2944 (“Probably the most common method of demonstrating that there is no adequate legal remedy is by showing that plaintiﬀ will suffer irreparable harm if the court does not intervene and prevent the impending injury.”). Because Planned Parenthood satisfied these threshold showings, the district court also balanced the equities and considered whether an injunction would be in the public interest. Planned Parenthood, 258 F. Supp. 3d at 955. The district court’s conclusions on these points were well within the bounds of its discretion. The district court did not err on the balance of harms. The more likely it is that a plaintiﬀ will win on the merits, the less the balance of harms needs to weigh in the plaintiﬀ’s favor. Planned Parenthood v. Van Hollen, 738 F.3d 786, 795 (7th Cir. 2013); Planned Parenthood of Indiana, Inc. v. Commissioner, 699 F.3d 962, 972 (7th Cir. 2012); Abbott Laboratories v. Mead Johnson & Co., 971 F.2d 6, 11–12 (7th Cir. 1992). On this record, Planned Parenthood’s likelihood of success on the merits is substantial. A final judgment in Planned Parenthood’s favor would not undo the irreparable harm to which its patients would have been subjected in the meantime, absent the injunction. It was within the district court’s sound discretion to weigh those consequences more heavily than any irreparable harm the State faces by delay in implementing its statute. The district court also did not err on the public interest analysis. 258 F. Supp. 3d at 955, citing Planned Parenthood of Indiana & Kentucky, Inc. v. Commissioner, 984 F. Supp. 2d 912, 931 (S.D. Ind. 2013). Because Planned Parenthood has shown that it is likely to succeed on the merits and that the balance of harms favors the injunction, those showings weigh more No. 17-2428 35 heavily in the balance than the State’s interest in enforcing a law that Planned Parenthood has shown is likely unconstitutional. See, e.g., Preston v. Thompson, 589 F.2d 300, 306 n.3 (7th Cir. 1978) (injunction in public interest where continuing constitutional violation is proof of irreparable harm). For all of these reasons, the district court’s preliminary injunction barring enforcement of the new parental notice requirement in Ind. Code § 16-34-2-4(d) and (e) is AFFIRMED. 36 No. 17-2428