The state of Alabama plans to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the state's effort to ban the most commonly used second trimester abortion procedure.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall's office on Tuesday asked the court for additional time to file its petition for review.
In 2016, Alabama lawmakers voted to ban the abortion procedure known as dilation and evacuation. A federal judge blocked the law as an unconstitutional restriction on abortion access.
In August of this year, the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the decision.
Politicians seeking to ban the procedure refer to it by the non-medical term "dismemberment abortion."
In the filing to the Supreme Court, state lawyers wrote that "the constitutionality of a state ban on dismemberment abortion is an important question of national significance."
