Last night, an Oklahoma judge overruled the state’s attempt to stop enforcement of a temporary restraining order against a new abortion law. The law, which was set to go into effect on November 1, would have imposed a number of abortion restrictions, including requiring doctors to report detailed personal information about patients who have had abortions to the state health department and the health department to post that information on a public website.

Last week, the state filed papers requesting that the order be dissolved. Judge Twyla Mason Gray of the District Court in and for Oklahoma County denied that request. The judge was expected to issue a decision this Friday, October 30, but ruled today.

A hearing in the case is still scheduled for December 4. The Center for Reproductive Rights filed a legal challenge against the law on September 29 on behalf of two Oklahoma taxpayers – former state representative Wanda Stapleton and Shawnee resident Lora Joyce Davis. 

The new law also bans abortions based on a woman’s preference for the sex of her child; creates new responsibilities for state health agencies to gather and analyze abortion data and enforce abortion restrictions; and redefines a number of abortion-related terms used in Oklahoma law. Oklahoma’s constitution requires that laws address only one subject a time, and the plaintiffs argue that the state legislature violated the constitution by covering four distinct topics in the statute.