One of the key restrictions in the anti-abortion bill passed in Texas last summer was supposed to go into effect today, Tuesday. But Monday afternoon,
a federal judge ruled that the provision requiring abortion providers to have admitting privileges at a local hospital is unconstitutional:
"The admitting-privileges provision of House Bill 2 does not bear a rational relationship to the legitimate right of the state in preserving and promoting fetal life or a woman's health and, in any event, places a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion of a nonviable fetus and is thus an undue burden to her," [Judge Lee] Yeakel wrote in his decision.
Another of the law's provisions, requiring a specific protocol for nonsurgical abortions—a protocol doctors argue is outdated—was limited but not struck down. This lawsuit did not challenge the law's ban on abortion after 20 weeks or the requirement, not yet in place, that clinics meet the standards for ambulatory surgical centers.
Texas' far-right government is, of course,
appealing, and:
Judge Yeakel said that “at the end of the day, these issues are going to be decided definitively not by this court, but by either the Circuit or the Supreme Court of the United States.”
And getting a barrage of restrictions in front of the Roberts court was always one of the goals for Republicans in Texas and elsewhere. The courts may—or may not—prevent the worst infringements on a woman's right to control her own body, but this is why it's so important to build power in the states and push for better laws by, say, electing Wendy Davis governor.