Just hours after a state board voted Wednesday to allow the enforcement of a long-debated Illinois law requiring a teenage girl's parents be notified before she has an abortion, a judge issued a temporary restraining order putting the measure back on hold.

The order will remain in effect until the judge can hear arguments on the issue. Cook County Judge Daniel Riley said he felt the American Civil Liberties Union, which sought the order, "demonstrated the distinct possibility of irreparable harm."

Illinois' law was passed in 1995, but never enforced because of various court actions. Thirty-five other states have similar laws, which meant some teens seeking abortions came to Illinois for them.

"This is a dumping ground for other states," said Joseph Scheidler, national director of the Pro-Life Action League. "You go look at the license plates at the abortion clinics."

Allowing the law to take effect raised the possibility that "young women in this state would be abused, they would be kicked out of their homes," Lorie Chaiten, head of the Illinois ACLU's reproductive rights project, said after the court hearing.

Assistant Illinois attorney general Thomas Ioppolo argued against the restraining order.

"Why does Illinois have to have a law that doesn't take the parents into account?" Ioppolo said. "The idea of having parental notification serves legitimate interests."

Earlier Wednesday, the state's Medical Disciplinary Board had voted not to extend a 90-day grace period on the law that had been put in place in August. Susan Hofer, a spokeswoman for the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, said that vote meant the law had gone into effect. After Riley's ruling, though, Hofer said the department is barred from enforcing it.

Thomas Brejcha, president of the Chicago-based Thomas More Society Pro-Life Law Center, called Illinois is "an island of abortion in the Midwest." Continued...