Coffey v. Skagit County Public Hospital District No. 1

This court case is completed

The ACLU filed a lawsuit in Skagit County Superior Court on behalf of a Mount Vernon woman seeking to have Skagit Regional Health comply with Washington’s Reproductive Privacy Act. Skagit Regional Health is a public hospital district that owns a hospital and clinics. The Reproductive Privacy Act was enacted by the people of Washington in 1991 by way of the statewide approval of Initiative 120. It protects the right of women to make their own reproductive decisions, including the rights to choose or refuse to terminate their pregnancies, and to choose or refuse birth control. The Act says clearly that if a government entity provides maternity care services, it must also provide abortion services. Skagit Regional Health provides a wide array of maternity care services yet does not provide medication abortions and rarely provides surgical abortions.