Supreme Court Halts Texas Pro-Life Law That Stopped Abortions at Over a Dozen Clinics
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by Steven Ertelt,
Late Tuesday night, the Supreme Court temporarily halted a pro-life Texas law that stopped abortions at more than a dozen abortion clinics across the state.
That came after an appeals court, earlier this month, allowed the enforcement of a Texas pro-life law credited with closing multiple abortion clinics and cutting abortions 13 percent, saving an estimated 9,900 babies from abortion.
The legislation, House Bill 2 (HB2), requires abortion facilities to meet the same safety standards of other Ambulatory Surgical Centers in the state, ensures that abortionists have admitting privileges at a local hospital, and bans painful late abortions on fully formed babies. The admitting privileges portion of the law was the portion responsible for closing abortion clinics and, because so many shut down or stopped doing abortions, Judge Lee Yeakel previously claimed that constituted an undue burden on women.
Although the appeals court ruled it would allow the law to stay in force during the lawsuit, the Supreme Court decided against that. Read the ruling here.
Although the decision is disappointing for pro-life advocates, Alliance Defending Freedom attorney Casey Mattox put it in context in an email to LifeNews.
“The Supreme Court’s decision only temporarily and partially prevents the Texas law from going into effect while the 5th Circuit finishes hearing the case. While that is disappointing, it should cause no great alarm. The state’s requirement against cut-and-run abortionists remains in effect for all but two abortion facilities. The restriction on abortions after 20 weeks on unborn children who can feel pain was never challenged and remains in effect today. Likewise, the limitations on chemical abortions up to seven weeks gestation and prohibiting abortionists from sending women home alone to abort have been upheld and remain in effect. We remain confident that the entirety of Texas’s law will ultimately be upheld.”
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