In a 27-page decision, a federal judge in Texas ruled Wednesday that the state’s ban on a widely used, World Health Organization-approved second-trimester method of terminating a pregnancy “intervenes in the medical process of abortion prior to viability in an unduly burdensome manner.” As in other recent abortion rulings, this one used language found in the U.S. Supreme Court’s 25-year-old Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision that bars laws which place an “undue burden” on women.
U.S. District Court Judge Lee Yeakel ruled that the ban would mean abortion providers would be forced to use riskier, invasive alternatives for second-trimester abortions. Exactly so, and proof once again that forced-birthers do not have women’s health in mind as they often claim as part of their propaganda about abortion restrictions.
The procedure in question is “dilation and evacuation” or D&E. It’s considered the safest second-trimester abortion method. Most abortions—88 percent—are performed in the first trimester. But D&E is used in 96 percent of second-trimester abortions, according to the National Abortion Federation Abortion Training Textbook. The World Health Organization calls this the safest and simplest way to terminate a pregnancy after 12 weeks of gestation. The abortion provider dilates the woman’s cervix and inserts surgical instruments into her uterus to remove fetal and placental tissue.
Forced-birther activists call the D&E prohibitions “dismemberment bans,” using an inflammatory term just as they did when they used “partial birth abortion” to eliminate a late-term abortion procedure. These advocates openly call their D&E bans “pro-life conquest.” The idea is to build up laws state by state in hopes of reaching a Supreme Court showdown. Eight states have passed such laws in the past three years, but implementation has been blocked in the courts.
Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton announced after Yeakel’s ruling that his office has already filed a notice of appeal to U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. “We will defend Senate Bill 8 all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, if necessary,” Paxton said in a statement.
Reproductive rights advocates were elated at the ruling. One of those was Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America:
“Today’s decision affirms what we already know -- that politics should never tie the hands of doctors or bar women from safe medical care. Lawmakers in Texas have been trying for years to ban abortion by any means necessary. This law is the same underhanded agenda in a different package, and it’s women who get hurt in the process. We’re grateful today’s decision will safeguard our patients access to safe, legal abortion in Texas and every person’s right to make their own pregnancy decisions,” said
Last year, in the seminal Whole Woman’s Health vs. Hellerstedt case, the Supreme Court shot down a Texas law requiring abortion clinics to be mini-hospitals and abortion-providing physicians to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital, saying these restrictions placed an “undue burden” on women seeking to terminate their pregnancies.