Texas abortion clinic closures were ordered by the federal court on Thursday. It would seem that the federal court sided with those who strongly support Texas' abortion law, which allows the state to enforce a provision that puts majority of its few remaining abortion clinics officially out of business.
Before the order was made, there were 20 remaining abortion clinics in the state. However, as soon as the Texas abortion clinic closures were made official, 13 out of the 20 had to be closed. And this is on top of the 21 abortion clinics that were put out of business since Governor Rick Perry, a Republican, signed one of the country's toughest abortion bills into law just last July.
This decision was actually made by a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans. The decision allows a provision of the law that requires abortion clinics to meet the same standards that surgical centers are asked to comply with.
The decision follows a ruling by US District Judge Lee Yeakel, which concluded that the provision was designed to limit the availability of abortion under the guise of making clinics a whole lot safer.
A group of doctors who sued to invalidate the implementation of the provision has argued that abortion clinics do not need to meet the same training, architectural, staffing, plumbing, and other related requirements that are asked of surgical centers. According to them, it was just far too costly and plain unnecessary.
However, lawyers from the office of Texas attorney General Greg Abbott have also argued that the recently mandated changes were only implemented in order to make the abortion clinics much safer for everyone, especially for its patients.
The clinics in question submitted evidence at the trial, saying that one in six women would live 150 miles from the nearest abortion clinic if already existing clinics, majority of which do not meet the same standards with surgical clinics, were closed for good because of the Texas abortion clinic closures order.
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