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03/28/2024 06:05:41 am

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Supreme Court Blocks Key Parts of Texas Abortion Law, Allows Abortion Clinics to Stay Open

Pro-abortion protest in Austin

(Photo : Reuters)

An unsigned order from the U.S. Supreme Court impedes key provisions in a Texas state law that could have imposed hospital-level requirements for abortion providers and would force most of them to shut down.

Several abortion clinics were allowed to reopen on Tuesday after the order was released indicating six justices' opinion that an abortion provider should meet standards similar to that of "ambulatory surgical centers," igniting applause from abortion rights advocates.

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"Tomorrow, 13 clinics across the state will be allowed to reopen and provide women with safe and legal abortion care in their own communities," Center for Reproductive Rights President Nancy Northup declared adding that the Supreme Court ruling is an interim step towards their continuing bout against "Texas's sham abortion law."

This was after only eight clinics, all of which are located in the eastern metropolitan parts of the state, were allowed to operate after the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit's decision to uphold the abortion law.

According to Texas officials, the 2013 Abortion Law's additional requisites for abortion providers are necessary to ensure Texan women's health is not jeopardized.

However, abortion clinic owners and human rights supporters deemed the additional requirements to be much too expensive and unnecessary while others see it as a disguised law that would put many abortion providers out of business.

"If the stay entered by the 5th Circuit is not vacated the clinics forced to remain closed during the appeals process will likely never reopen," lawyers for the Center for Reproductive Rights explained to the land's highest court.

In the order, Supreme Court justices expressed their opposition in the enforcement of the surgical-center requirement as well as the admitting privileges that applied to clinics in El Paso and McAllen.

However, other justices including Justice Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, and Samuel A. Alito Jr. said that they would have approved of the law.

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