Curtis T. Hill, Jr., Attorney General of Indiana, et al. v. Whole Woman's Health Alliance, et al.

When Respondent Whole Woman’s Health applied for a license to open a new abortion clinic in South Bend but refused to supply documentation of past complaints against its affiliates, the Indiana State Department of Health denied its first license application and refused to act on its second. Rather than avail itself of Indiana’s administrative and judicial review processes, Whole Woman’s Health obtained immunity from Indiana’s licensing laws via federal court preliminary injunction. The Seventh Circuit ruled that Indiana could generally apply its licensing laws to the South Bend clinic, yet ordered the State to issue a “provisional” license to Whole Woman’s Health pending a federal trial over the necessity of the State’s document demands. The State presents two questions for the Court’s consideration:

1. May a corporation that has been denied a state license to open a new abortion clinic assert the Fourteenth Amendment rights of hypothetical future patients as the basis for challenging the licensing requirement and the license denial?

2. May a federal court order a state agency to issue an abortion clinic license as a remedy for an “as applied” undue burden challenge to state implementation of its licensing laws?