SALT LAKE CITY — Demonstrators lined the Utah State Capitol’s steps Saturday morning for the annual "March for Life" rally.
Typically a vocal group throughout the legislative session, Pro-Life Utah President Mary Taylor said this year is going to look a bit different.
“For now, we're just laying a little bit low,” said Taylor.
At the top of Taylor’s mind is the Utah State Supreme Court’s pending decision on Utah’s abortion trigger law.
“There’s a long ways to go legislatively with abortion laws, but ... the most important thing right now is to get that trigger abortion law through the courts and active in the state of Utah,” she said.
The state’s trigger law went into effect in June of 2022 after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Dobbs v. Jackson that the federal constitution does not protect the right to abortion.
The Planned Parenthood Association of Utah filed a lawsuit challenging that law, and within a few days, a district court judge put the law on hold.
While the trigger ban is blocked, abortion is allowed up to 18 weeks in Utah.
“We've been on hold for a year and a half,” said Taylor. “Our focus is there.”
It’s where Pro-Life Utah’s focus is… and Planned Parenthood’s, too.
The Planned Parenthood Association of Utah declined to comment on Saturday’s event but reiterated that abortion remains legal in Utah up to 18 weeks. They also said litigation over Utah’s near-total abortion ban is before the State Supreme Court.
The State Supreme Court’s last hearing to discuss it was this past August, and it’s unclear when the justices will rule on the topic.
When it comes to national data, Pew Research found a majority of the country’s public — 57 percent — disagrees with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade — the decision that had guaranteed a constitutional right to an abortion.
It also found about two-thirds of Americans think abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while a third of Americans think it should be illegal in all or most cases.
