TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Stacey Shrader Joslin on Oct 23, 2025

A three-judge panel has ruled against the state’s effort to end a longstanding lawsuit challenging the vagueness and inadequacy of exceptions to the state’s the near-total abortion ban, Tennessee Lookout reports. Attorneys for the state had asked for a ruling in their favor, without a trial, in a lawsuit brought in 2023 by a group of doctors and women who had suffered serious medical problems during their pregnancies. The American Medical Association subsequently joined the lawsuit. The state had argued that a 2025 amendment adding “medical necessity exceptions” to the ban made the lawsuit moot. The judges concluded that the lawsuit contained sufficiently serious and credible allegations to move forward. In a separate decision last week, the panel also allowed the plaintiffs to access documents from the governor’s office, General Assembly and Department of Health that reveal the “state’s interest in enforcing the amended abortion ban and medical exceptions.” Attorneys for the state since have filed an emergency motion seeking permission to appeal the ruling regarding access to documents.