Ruling
halted closure of a dozen abortion clinics across the state, threatened under
restrictive measures passed in 2013
theguardian.com,
Joanna Walters in New York, Saturday 30 August 2014
 |
| The Hilltop Women’s Reproductive clinic in El Paso, Texas would have been forced to close. Photograph: Juan Carlos LLorca/AP |
Abortion
providers across the US this weekend gave muted cheers to a court ruling that
blocked a new law that would have caused more than half of the dwindling number
of clinics in Texas to close as early as Monday.
The Texas
state government immediately announced it would appeal the ruling, which was
delivered late on Friday and which halted the closure of a dozen abortion
clinics across the state.
“At least
for the moment today’s victory is vital in preventing politicians’ scorched-earth
assaults on women’s healthcare,” said Nancy Northup, chief executive of the
Center for Reproductive Rights. The CCR filed the lawsuit, claiming the
proposed law was unconstitutional.
Federal
district judge Lee Yeakel agreed on Friday and declared, in the state capital
Austin, in favour of the CCR.
Texas’ new
abortion measures were signed into law by Texas governor Rick Perry in 2013 and
have since been implemented in stages; the latest law, about surgical
standards, was due to come into effect on Monday.
Yeakel also
struck down, in part, a law requiring abortion doctors to be listed on the
staff of a hospital within 30 miles of the clinic where they worked. He blocked
that rule in south and west Texas, around the Rio Grande Valley and El Paso
areas.
Stephanie
Toti, a senior staff attorney with the CCR, told the Guardian doctors in
abortion clinics in those areas had received letters from local hospitals
refusing to put them on staff in order to allow them to continue practicing.
“They said
it was unrelated to their clinical skills. There is a lot of hostility to
abortion providers in those areas,” she said.
If the
judge had found against the clinics and the full set of laws had gone into
effect in Texas, Toti said, a million people in south and west Texas would not
have had an in-state abortion clinic within 150 miles.
The
legislation approved by Perry also contained a ruling that abortion clinics
would have to upgrade surgical standards to the level of a mini-hospital, and
banned abortion after 20 weeks.
Supporters
argued that the legislation was designed to improve healthcare standards for
women and was not solely an attempt to reduce access to abortion.
Judge
Yeakel ruled that the new law placed a burden on women without providing any
medical benefits.
“The
overall effect of the provisions is to create an impermissible obstacle as
applied to all women seeking a pre-viability abortion,” Yeakel wrote in a
21-page ruling.
If the bill
signed by Perry had gone into effect, the number of licensed abortion clinics
in Texas would have dropped from 19 to seven, with all of those in the largest
cities, Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, Forth Worth and Austin. A little more
than two years ago there were 41 abortion clinics in the state. In many areas,
women already have to drive hundreds of miles for repeat appointments.
“Texas
women still face serious threats to their rights, health and ability to obtain
safe, high-quality reproductive healthcare from reputable doctors in their
communities,” said Northup.
The
American College of Gynaecologists and Obstetricians has warned that laws in a
number of states shutting down abortion clinics are a threat to women’s health.
“Women will
resort to other means to try to terminate a pregnancy, which will put their
lives at risk,” said chief executive Hal Lawrence.
Federal
judges have recently blocked similar laws to that which was passed in Texas,
particularly those requiring doctors already licensed to perform abortions in
clinics to be accredited at local hospitals. Such rules have been struck down
in Alabama, Kansas, Wisconsin and Mississippi. The last-named state has only
one remaining abortion clinic.
Amy
Hagstrom Miller, chief executive of Whole Woman’s Health, an abortion provider
in several states, said after the Texas ruling: “We are extremely pleased with
Judge Yeakel’s ruling. As he states, requiring every abortion clinic to turn
into a surgical centre is excessive and not based on good medicine.”
Some
opponents of the law have pointed out that the higher surgical standards are
not required of other clinics offering minor procedures unrelated to abortions,
such as colonoscopies, which have a similar level of risk.
“This is a
great victory for the women of Texas,” Toti told the Guardian. “But the
state has already filed an appeal.”
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