A federal judge ruled that an Indiana law that would have placed new restrictions on clinics that provide drug-induced abortions is unconstitutional on the grounds that the law makes an unfounded distinction between certain facilities and physician offices.

The 2013 law redefined the classification of abortion clinics to include facilities that only perform drug-induced abortions. However, District Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson issued a ruling Wednesday declaring that the law violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution by treating a Planned Parenthood clinic in Lafayette differently to physician offices that provide the same medications, reports the Associated Press.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana filed a lawsuit on behalf of Planned Parenthood against Senate Enrolled Act 371, which changed the definition of "abortion clinic" to include facilities that provide only the abortion pill, mifepristone, to terminate a pregnancy.

The legislation also requires clinics that only offer the abortion pill to meet the same requirements as clinics that provide surgical procedures, reports IndyStar.

The law, however, did not apply to the private doctors who provide the same medication. As a result, only the Lafayette health clinic was affected by it.

Opponents argued the law would have forced the Lafayette clinic to shut down due to unnecessary expensive renovations to meet the same standards at surgical abortion clinics.

However, the state maintained that the law requires the clinic to be "minimally prepared" in case a woman suffers complications after taking the prescribed abortion pill.

"[The law] allows the State to arbitrarily divide medication abortion providers into two groups -- 'abortion clinics' and undefined 'physician's offices' -- and treat those groups differently, without a rational basis for doing so, by requiring 'abortion clinics' but not 'physician's offices' to meet the physical plant requirements at issue," the judge said. "The consequence is that the Lafayette (clinic) must either comply with certain physical plant requirements that previously only applied to surgical abortion providers, or stop providing medication abortions. No 'physician's office' faces the same choice."

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