INDIANAPOLIS — The state of Indiana filed an appeal Friday after a judge blocked the state’s new abortion law.

The state requests a stay of the preliminary injunction preventing enforcement of the law, which was in effect for a week before Judge Kelsey B. Hanlon made her decision.

The ACLU of Indiana and a group of abortion providers filed a lawsuit seeking to block the law, described as a near-total ban on abortion. The newly enacted measure bans abortion at all times during pregnancy except in cases of rape or incest up to 10 weeks post-fertilization, risk to the mother’s health and fetal fatal anomaly.

In its response to the injunction, the state of Indiana argued the law should remain in effect until its appeal is decided and said the case should go to the Indiana Supreme Court.

From the state’s filing:

While the trial court’s preliminary injunction remains in effect, state laws essential for protecting unborn children cannot be enforced. The lives of the unborn will be terminated. Indeed, in response to the preliminary injunction, abortion clinics have already begun to offer abortions that would otherwise be prohibited by state law.

“Only this Court can provide the final word on this hotly contested, high-profile, pure question of law that is of grave importance to the General Assembly and the citizens of Indiana,” the state wrote in its motion.

The plaintiffs argued that the law violates the right to privacy guaranteed in the Indiana constitution.