(Austin) The Texas Supreme Court has blocked a lower court order that gave some abortion clinics the confidence to resume abortions.
Posted at 11:40 a.m.
Friday night’s ruling by the state’s highest court comes just days after some abortion providers rushed to resume services.
A court order issued this week by a Houston judge had reassured some doctors that they could temporarily resume abortions until six weeks into their pregnancy. Prior to that, doctors had stopped performing abortions in the state after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade and ended the constitutional right to abortion on June 24.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton quickly asked the state’s highest court, which has nine Republican justices, to temporarily suspend that order.
Abortion clinics across the country are struggling to navigate the changing legal landscape around abortion laws and access.
In Florida, a law banning abortions after 15 weeks went into effect on Friday, the day after a judge called it a violation of the state constitution and said he would sign an order temporarily blocking the law. next week. The ban could have wider consequences in the South, where Florida has less restricted access to the procedure than its neighbors.
The right to abortion was lost and regained in the space of a few days in Kentucky. A law mandating a near-total ban on the procedure automatically went into effect last Friday, but a judge blocked the law Thursday, meaning the state’s only two abortion providers can start seeing patients again — for the moment.
Legal wrangling is almost certain to continue to wreak havoc on people seeking abortions in the United States for the foreseeable future, with court rulings upending access at all times and an influx of new patients from all over the world. other states.
Even when women travel outside states where abortion is banned, they may have fewer options for terminating their pregnancies, as the prospect of lawsuits follows them.
abortion pill
Planned Parenthood of Montana this week stopped providing medical abortions to patients who live in abortion-banning states “to minimize potential risks to providers, health center staff, and patients in the face of an evolving landscape.” fast “.
Planned Parenthood North Central States, which offers the procedure in Minnesota, Iowa and Nebraska, told its patients they must take both pills in a state that allows abortions.
The use of abortion pills has been the most common method of terminating a pregnancy since 2000, when the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved mifepristone, the main drug used in medical abortions. Taken with misoprostol, a drug that causes cramps that empty the uterus, it is called the abortion pill.
Access to abortion pills has become a key battle in abortion rights, with President Joe Biden’s administration preparing to argue that states cannot ban a drug that has received FDA approval.
A South Dakota law that took effect Friday threatens a criminal penalty for anyone who prescribes abortion drugs without a license from the South Dakota Board of Medical and Osteopathic Examiners.
In Alabama, Attorney General Steve Marshall’s office said it is considering whether individuals or groups could be prosecuted for helping women fund and attend abortion appointments outside the state. ‘State.