Carafem is a network of women’s health centers with four locations across the country. Carafem health centers provide family planning services, which includes a variety of birth control options, abortions, and testing for sexually transmitted infections and other infections. Carafem opened a new location in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee on March 1, 2019 in Providence Medical Pavilion, a building that houses several other medical clinics. At the time it opened, carafem was providing medication abortions and birth control, with plans to provide surgical abortion at a later date. The abortion pill can be used during the first ten weeks of pregnancy. Surgical abortion can be used during the first thirteen weeks of pregnancy.
Within days of carafem’s opening, the Mt. Juliet City Commissioners held a public emergency meeting and unanimously approved a zoning ordinance that would prevent carafem from performing surgical abortions. The Board of Commissioners again addressed the new zoning ordinance at a meeting on April 8, 2019. The Board unanimously approved the new ordinance at that meeting with no other comments. Under the new zoning ordinance, there are no locations within the city where a clinic that provides surgical abortions could be located. The only other clinic in middle Tennessee that provides surgical abortions is Planned Parenthood, which had ceased the practice for several months in the past year and is now overbooked. The Mt. Juliet ban on surgical abortion causes carafem’s patients who need the procedure to travel to Memphis or Atlanta if they cannot get an appointment with the Planned Parenthood clinic.
We filed suit in December 2020. Along with the lawsuit, we filed a Motion for a Preliminary Injunction asking that carafem be allowed to provide the surgical abortions while the case is pending. On May 1, 2020, the Court granted our Motion for Preliminary Injunction, blocking the Defendants from enforcing the zoning ordinance. In early June 2020, the City repealed the offending ordinances.
After a settlement conference on August 7, 2020, the parties agreed to settle the remaining issues in the case. As part of the settlement the City is precluded from repassing the ordinance or a similar one for one year and, in the event any changes in the zoning laws occur, carafem is exempt from those changes and can continue to operate at its present facility or move to one in any district that is zones for medical offices. The City also agreed to pay $250,000 in attorney’s fees.
PLAINTIFF(S):
FemHealth USA, Inc. d/b/a carafem
DEFENDANT(S):
City of Mount Juliet; City Manager of Mount Juliet, Kenny Martin; Chief of Police of Mount Juliet, James Hambrick; Zoning Administrator of Mount Juliet, Jennifer Hamblen
ATTORNEY(S):
ACLU-TN: Thomas H. Castelli
ACLU: Andrew D. Beck
Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP: Elizabeth P. Gray, Heather M. Schneider, Tara L. Thieme, Vanessa Richardson, Devon W. Edwards, and Sruti Swaminathan
