The pro-abortion Center for Reproductive Rights has asked the US Supreme Court to take up the case of Texas’s hotly-contested 2013 law imposing new regulations on abortion clinics.
One of the requirements required abortionists to have admitting privileges at area hospitals, and the other (which is not currently enforced) requires that all abortions in the state occur in ambulatory surgical centers. The Supreme Court has issued a number of temporary injunctions on enforcement of the law, but has yet to officially consider its legal merits.
Abortion defenders argue that the law places unconstitutional limits on access to abortion and, if allowed to take effect, could shut down eight of the state’s remaining abortion clinics, leaving Texas with just ten. CRR president Nancy Northup predicts the fallout would be “immediate and devastating” for Texan women. However, Texas has over 400 community health centers operated by federally qualified health centers, dramatically outnumbering the 42 abortion clinics before 2013 or the 38 Planned Parenthood centers currently in the state.
As Live Action News has previously reported, the law in question is also one of the pieces of legislation former State Rep. Wendy Davis rose to prominence filibustering. But despite running for governor in the name of Texas women, female voters told pollsters they preferred Greg Abbott by double digits.
