Abortion Law Devastates Access in Texas
Access to safe, legal abortions in Texas was significantly rocked this year, as the impact of the restrictive law passed last summer forced the closure of more than half the state's abortion clinics. Another handful remain in legal limbo as the providers await a ruling from the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The law, in part, forces clinics to obtain admitting privileges at nearby hospitals and to meet expensive ambulatory surgical center requirements, most of which are construction changes deemed medically unnecessary by national medical groups. The law also bans abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy and places outdated restrictions on physicians administering the medical abortion pill.
The Fifth Circuit ruled in favor of the state in the first legal challenge to the law, which took on the admitting privileges requirement and medical abortion protocol that an Austin-based federal district judge found unconstitutional.
In the second lawsuit, abortion providers and their lawyers are challenging the admitting privileges requirement as it applies to a clinic in McAllen and another in El Paso along with the ambulatory surgical center requirement. These two provisions have forced clinics to shutter statewide, leaving West Texas with no abortion provider and just one clinic south of San Antonio, forcing women to travel long distances for their procedures.
Once again, a federal district court found those provisions place an undue burden on women seeking an abortion. When that ruling came down, clinics that expected to close their doors on September 1, when the final piece of the law was scheduled to take effect, got a few weeks reprieve. But shortly thereafter, a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit gave the state permission to immediately implement the law in full pending an appeal filed by Attorney General Greg Abbott. Overnight, Texas was down to no more than eight operating clinics for the entire state. Then the Supreme Court of the United States stepped in, halting the implementation of the law, pending the appeal, and giving the clinics that could an opportunity to reopen. Of course, not all could or will, leaving abortion access in Texas permanently impacted. The abortion providers and the state of Texas will be back in federal appeals court in New Orleans January 7, 2015. Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood South Texas plans to complete a surgical center that will meet all of the state's new clinic requirements by early 2015.
