Appeals court lets Texas enforce law that restricts abortions
A federal appeal's court decision Thursday allows Texas to enforce a restrictive state abortion law, effectively closing all but seven abortion facilities in the state.
The ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals stays a lower judge's ruling and allows Texas to put into effect restrictions that were part of its abortion law passed last year and pushed by Republican Gov. Rick Perry.
The Texas' attorney general's office called the decision "vindication'' for the Texas law, which Perry and other Lone Star conservatives say is designed to protect women's health.
The Center for Reproductive Rights, an abortion rights group that challenged the Texas law, denounced the decision and said it was considering legal options.
"Today's ruling has gutted Texas women's constitutional rights and access to critical reproductive health care and stands to make safe, legal abortion essentially disappear overnight,'' said Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the group.
The decision follows a ruling in August by U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel that part of the Texas law requiring clinics to spend millions on hospital upgrades was aimed at making access to abortions more difficult rather than ensuring patient safety.
Texas has appealed that decision, led by Attorney General Greg Abbott, a Republican candidate for governor this November. The three-judge panel's ruling allows the state to enforce the new law while the case is on appeal.
Among the law's provisions is the requirement that clinics performing abortion procedures upgrade to certain hospital-type equipment, which Northup's group calls "a multimillion-dollar tax on abortion services.''
Opponents say the result of that requirement is that the state's biggest cities – Houston, Austin, San Antonio and Dallas-Fort Worth, will be the only places in the state with abortion facilities, shutting out access for women in other parts of the vast state.
The abortion rights group said that one million Texas women will be 300 miles or more away from an abortion provider. Democrats, waging an uphill battle in next month's elections in Texas, blamed Perry, Abbott and other GOP backers for restricting women's access to health care.
"Texas Republicans are forcing women's health clinics to close,'' said Lisa Paul, spokeswoman for the Texas state Democratic Party. "This will not only deny women their right to choose, but also reduces their access to prenatal care, cancer screenings, mammograms, and annual wellness visits.''
Some clinics have already closed as a result of another part of the 2013 law requiring doctors to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals.
The number of abortion clinics operating in Texas has fallen from 41 before the law was passed last year to about 20 before the latest ruling.
Carl Tobias, professor at the University of Richmond law school, said he expected the plaintiffs to seek a review by the full 5th Circuit court "and the whole court could reach a different result.''
"It's incredibly devastating to have this go into effect immediately,'' said Elizabeth Nash of the New York-based Guttmacher Institute, a policy and research center that advocates reproductive health rights for women.
Opponents charge the Texas law was passed in a backdoor effort to outlaw abortions, despite the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that upheld a woman's right to an abortion. Democrat Wendy Davis based her campaign for governor against Abbott on the attention she gained fighting the new law in the state legislature, where she waged a nearly 13-hour filibuster that temporarily blocked the law in the state Senate.
Contributing: Rick Jervis in Austin; Associated Press