A federal appeals court gave Texas permission to fully enforce the state's law that will hinder women's access to abortion clinics.
Seven clinics will remain in operation, down from more than 40 two years ago, after three-judge panel of the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals handed down its decision in New Orleans on Oct. 2. The legislation, called House Bill 2, requires doctors who perform abortions to obtain hospital admitting privileges and for abortion clinics to meet hospital-level operating standards to stay open, according to the Associated Press.
"This decision is a vindication of the careful deliberation by the Texas Legislature to craft a law to protect the health and safety of Texas women," Lauren Bean, a spokeswoman for Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott, told the AP. Abbott is the favorite as the next governor of Texas.
The decision forced 13 clinics to close immediately. A lower court temporarily blocked the operating standards mandate in August, which allowed an estimated 20 abortion clinics to remain open during the appeals process, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The remaining abortion providers are clustered around metro areas such as Houston, Austin, San Antonio, Dallas and Fort Worth. Women living near the U.S.-Mexican border or in West Texas could faces drives of more than three hours to have an abortion. The state's lawyers claim 9 in 10 Texas women still live within 150 miles of the nearest facility, but that still leaves nearly a million women much further away, according to the AP.
"Today's ruling has gutted Texas women's constitutional rights and access to critical reproductive healthcare and stands to make safe, legal abortion essentially disappear overnight," Nancy Northrup, president for the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a statement.
"All Texas women have been relegated today to a second class of citizens whose constitutional rights are lesser than those in states less hostile to reproductive autonomy, and women facing difficult economic circumstances will be particularly hard hit by this devastating blow."
