By KEVIN McGILL, AMY FOR­L­I­TI and GE­OFF MUL­VI­HILL | AS­SO­CI­AT­ED PRESS

NEW OR­LEANS (AP) — The fall of Roe v. Wade shift­ed the bat­tle­ground over abor­tion to cour­t­hous­es around the coun­try Mon­day, as one side sought quick­ly to put statewide bans in­to ef­fect and the oth­er tried to stop or at least de­lay such mea­sures.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s de­ci­sion Fri­day to end con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­tec­tion for abor­tion opened the gates for a wave of lit­i­ga­tion from all sides.

Many of the court cas­es will fo­cus on “trig­ger laws,” adopt­ed in 13 states in an­tic­i­pa­tion of the rul­ing and de­signed to take ef­fect swift­ly. Law­suits could al­so tar­get old an­ti-abor­tion laws that were left on the books and went un­en­forced un­der Roe. New­er abor­tion re­stric­tions that were put on hold pend­ing the Supreme Court rul­ing have al­so start­ed to come back in­to play.

“We’ll be back in court to­mor­row and the next day and the next day,” Nan­cy Northup, pres­i­dent and CEO of the Cen­ter for Re­pro­duc­tive Rights, which ar­gued the case that re­sult­ed in the high court rul­ing, said Fri­day.

In Louisiana on Mon­day, a judge in New Or­leans, a lib­er­al city in a con­ser­v­a­tive state, tem­porar­i­ly blocked en­force­ment of the state’s trig­ger-law ban on abor­tion, af­ter abor­tion rights ac­tivists ar­gued that it is un­clear. The rul­ing is in ef­fect pend­ing a Ju­ly 8 hear­ing.

At least one of the state’s three abor­tion clin­ics said it would re­sume per­form­ing pro­ce­dures on Tues­day.

“We’re go­ing to do what we can,” said Kath­leen Pittman, ad­min­is­tra­tor of Hope Med­ical Group for Women, in Shreve­port. “It could all come to a screech­ing halt.”

Al­so Mon­day, abor­tion rights ad­vo­cates asked a Flori­da judge to block a new law there that bans the pro­ce­dure af­ter 15 weeks with some ex­cep­tions and is set to take ef­fect this week.

The Amer­i­can Civ­il Lib­er­ties Union of Ari­zona and an abor­tion-rights group filed an emer­gency mo­tion Sat­ur­day seek­ing to block a 2021 law they wor­ry can be used to halt all abor­tions. Planned Par­ent­hood in Utah has chal­lenged a trig­ger law there that con­tains nar­row ex­cep­tions.

Brigitte Amiri, deputy di­rec­tor of the Amer­i­can Civ­il Lib­er­ties Union’s Re­pro­duc­tive Free­dom Project, said the or­ga­ni­za­tion is look­ing at “all op­tions” to pro­tect ac­cess to abor­tion.

As of Sat­ur­day, abor­tion ser­vices had stopped in at least 11 states — ei­ther be­cause of state laws or con­fu­sion over them.

In some cas­es, the law­suits may on­ly buy time. Even if courts block some re­stric­tions from tak­ing hold, law­mak­ers in many con­ser­v­a­tive states could move quick­ly to ad­dress any flaws cit­ed.

That’s like­ly to be the case in Louisiana. The plain­tiffs in the law­suit filed in state court don’t de­ny that the state can now ban abor­tion. In­stead, they con­tend Louisiana now has mul­ti­ple, con­flict­ing trig­ger mech­a­nisms in the law.

They al­so ar­gue that state law is un­clear on whether it bans an abor­tion pri­or to a fer­til­ized egg im­plant­i­ng in the uterus. And while the law pro­vides an ex­cep­tion for “med­ical­ly fu­tile” preg­nan­cies in cas­es of foe­tus­es with lethal ab­nor­mal­i­ties, the plain­tiffs not­ed the law gives no de­f­i­n­i­tion of the term.

Around the coun­try, chal­lenges to oth­er trig­ger laws could be made on the grounds that the con­di­tions to im­pose the bans have not been met, or that it was im­prop­er for a past leg­is­la­ture to bind the cur­rent one.

Lau­ra Hern­er, a pro­fes­sor at Mitchell Ham­line School of Law in St. Paul, Min­neso­ta, said oth­er chal­lenges might call in­to ques­tion whether state laws suf­fi­cient­ly and clear­ly al­low for ex­cep­tions to pro­tect the life or health of a preg­nant woman.

Now that the high court has ruled that the U.S. Con­sti­tu­tion does not guar­an­tee the right to an abor­tion, abor­tion rights sup­port­ers will make the case that their state con­sti­tu­tions pro­tect such a right.

A judge heard ar­gu­ments on that is­sue Mon­day in Flori­da, where at­tor­neys sought an emer­gency in­junc­tion to stop a new law from go­ing in­to ef­fect Fri­day. The ban be­yond 15 weeks has ex­cep­tions to save the preg­nant woman’s life or pre­vent phys­i­cal harm or in cas­es where the fe­tus has a fa­tal ab­nor­mal­i­ty. The ACLU of Flori­da has ar­gued it vi­o­lates the Flori­da Con­sti­tu­tion.

In a sep­a­rate law­suit filed by a Jew­ish con­gre­ga­tion in Flori­da, ar­gu­ments over re­li­gious lib­er­ty and the sep­a­ra­tion of church and state will come in­to play.

Still oth­er cas­es could be filed as states try to sort out whether abor­tion bans in place be­fore Roe was de­cid­ed — some­times re­ferred to as “zom­bie laws” — ap­ply now that there is no fed­er­al pro­tec­tion for abor­tion.

For in­stance, Wis­con­sin passed a law in 1849 ban­ning abor­tions ex­cept to save the life of the moth­er. At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Josh Kaul, a De­mo­c­rat, said he does not be­lieve it is en­force­able. Abor­tion op­po­nents have called on law­mak­ers to im­pose a new ban.

In the mean­time, Planned Par­ent­hood of Wis­con­sin said it im­me­di­ate­ly sus­pend­ed all abor­tions, though the dis­trict at­tor­neys in Madi­son and Mil­wau­kee have sug­gest­ed that they would not en­force the ban.

In Michi­gan, Planned Par­ent­hood chal­lenged a 1931 abor­tion ban ahead of last week’s Supreme Court rul­ing. In May, a judge said the ban could not be en­forced be­cause it vi­o­lates the state’s con­sti­tu­tion. Abor­tion rights sup­port­ers are now try­ing to get a pro­posed state con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment on the bal­lot in No­vem­ber to pro­tect abor­tion and birth con­trol.

Ida­ho, Ok­la­homa and Texas have adopt­ed laws that al­low peo­ple to seek boun­ties against those who help oth­ers get abor­tions. It is an open ques­tion as to whether that means peo­ple can be pur­sued across state lines, and le­gal chal­lenges over those is­sues are like­ly to come up in cas­es of both sur­gi­cal abor­tions and those us­ing med­i­cine mailed to pa­tients.

The Cal­i­for­nia Leg­is­la­ture, con­trolled by De­moc­rats, passed a bill Thurs­day to shield abor­tion providers and vol­un­teers in the state from civ­il judg­ments im­posed by oth­er states. In lib­er­al Mass­a­chu­setts, Gov. Char­lie Bak­er, a Re­pub­li­can, signed an ex­ec­u­tive or­der Fri­day that pro­hibits state agen­cies from as­sist­ing oth­er states’ in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to any­one who re­ceives a le­gal abor­tion in Mass­a­chu­setts.

The chal­lenge filed in Ari­zona, where most providers stopped of­fer­ing abor­tions, said the le­gal ques­tions are ur­gent.

Even if abor­tions re­sume in weeks or months, the plain­tiffs said, “pa­tients may be at greater risk of med­ical com­pli­ca­tions or may lose ac­cess to abor­tion al­to­geth­er as a re­sult of the de­lay.”

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Amy For­l­i­ti re­port­ed from Min­neapo­lis and Mul­vi­hill from Cher­ry Hill, New Jer­sey. As­so­ci­at­ed Press writ­ers An­tho­ny Iza­guirre in Tal­la­has­see, Flori­da; Scott Bauer in Madi­son, Wis­con­sin; Kate Brum­back in At­lanta; Steve LeBlanc in Boston and Don Thomp­son in Sacra­men­to, Cal­i­for­nia, con­tributed to this re­port.