Court upholds key parts of Texas’ strict anti-abortion law

A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld Texas’ strict abortion restrictions that could soon leave only seven abortion clinics open in a state of 27 million people.

The decision by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals allows Texas to enforce Republican-backed restrictions that require abortion clinics to meet hospital-level operating standards, a checklist that includes rules on minimum room sizes, staffing levels and air ventilation systems. The restrictions, approved in 2013, are among the toughest in the nation.

Owners of traditional abortion clinics, which resemble doctor’s offices more than hospitals, say they would be forced to close because the new rules demand millions of dollars in upgrades they can’t afford. That would mark the second large wave of closures in as many years in Texas, which had 41 abortion clinics in 2012, before other new restrictions took effect that require doctor admitting privileges.

Abortion-rights groups said they will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which temporarily sidelined the law last year.

If the law takes effect, some women in the state would live hundreds of miles away from a Texas abortion provider. But that argument didn’t sway the three-judge panel making the decision for the New Orleans-based appeals court, which is considered one of the most conservative in the nation. The judges noted that a New Mexico abortion clinic was just across the Texas border, and said clinic owners in Texas failed to prove that a “large fraction” of women would be burdened.

Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, whose office argued before the appeals court in January, praised Tuesday’s ruling.

“Abortion practitioners should have no right to operate their businesses from sub-standard facilities and with doctors who lack admitting privileges at a hospital,” Paxton said.

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and other conservatives say the standards protect women’s health. But abortion-rights supports say the law is a thinly veiled attempt to block access to abortions in Texas, which has been the site of one of the nation’s largest abortion fights for two years.

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