Federal appeals court reinstates ban on medication abortions in Texas amid coronavirus
A federal appeals court reinstated most of Texas’ ban on abortions amid the coronavirus outbreak Monday, ruling that medication abortions, which are induced by taking pills, may not be permitted.
The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling comes one week after it had allowed medication abortions, which are permitted during the first 10 weeks of pregnancy, to resume.
The ruling is the latest in the back-and-forth legal battle between abortion providers and the state over Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive order last month that suspended elective surgeries and procedures not necessary to correct a serious medical condition or to preserve the life of a patient — including abortions.
In Texas, abortions are banned 22 weeks past a patient’s last menstrual period. Monday’s decision permits abortions to continue only for patients who would reach that gestational limit while Abbott’s order was still in place.
That order expires at 11:59 p.m. Tuesday. It was unclear how Monday’s ruling may affect looser restrictions on elective procedures that are set to replace it.
Abbott issued a new executive order Friday that permits procedures that would not deplete hospital capacity or supplies of personal protective equipment, such as face masks or gloves. The order goes into effect at 11:59 p.m. on Tuesday and lasts through May 8.
The ruling did not express an opinion on the language in Friday’s executive order, but Abbott said Friday during a press conference that abortion procedures are “not part of this order” and that “ultimately, obviously that will be a decision for courts to make.”
However, Amy Hagstrom Miller, the president and CEO of Whole Woman’s Health and Whole Woman’s Health Alliance, which operates a clinic in Fort Worth, pointed to the executive order’s expiration date Tuesday as “the one light at the end of this period of uncertainty.”
“On Wednesday, we expect to offer patients the safe and compassionate abortion care they deserve – with both medication abortion as well as in-clinic procedures,” Miller said in a statement Monday night. “We look forward to getting back to what we do best; providing safe and compassionate abortion care services to those who need us.”
Abbott previously said that his order banning elective medical procedures was intended to increase hospital capacity and conserve personal protective equipment to combat spread of the novel coronavirus. A day after it was issued in March, Attorney General Ken Paxton clarified that abortion providers were not exempt from the order and said only abortion procedures essential for the mother’s health would be permitted.
While anti-abortion groups celebrated Paxton’s interpretation, abortion providers represented by the Center for Reproductive Rights, the Lawyering Project, and Planned Parenthood Federation of America quickly followed two days later with a federal lawsuit against Texas officials in an effort to stop the state’s ban.
Aspects of the ban have been repeatedly reinstated and reversed as it’s gone back and forth between a federal district court in Austin and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Texas abortion providers have even asked the U.S. Supreme Court to take emergency action to restore medical abortion services.
In the wake of Abbott’s executive order, abortion providers have canceled hundreds of procedures, and some Texans have reported traveling out of the state in order to obtain abortions.
Other states that have passed similar restrictions on elective medical procedures have run into the same question. Officials in Washington and Massachusetts clarified that under their orders abortions can continue as planned, while states like Ohio and Alabama ran into legal challenges in regard to their bans.
This story was originally published April 20, 2020 at 4:24 PM.
