Federal Judge rules Texas Abortion Limits Are Unconstitutional (VIDEO)

Federal Court Strikes Down Toughest Abortion Laws In Country

AUSTIN, TX – In a blow to federalism, a federal judge has ruled that new abortion restrictions passed by the Texas legislature are unconstitutional and should not take effect. The new laws would have made the state the toughest in the nation against abortion.

District Judge Lee Yeakel issued his decision Monday on the case that decided whether the state can restrict when, where and how women obtain abortions in Texas. The Texas attorney general had argued that the law protected women and fetuses. Planned Parenthood and their coalitions argued that the regulations would shut down a third of abortion clinics in Texas.

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The lawsuit targeted the requirements that would make doctors obtain admitting privileges at hospitals within 30 miles of the clinic which is providing abortion services. There would also have been legal restrictions on RU486, an abortion inducing drug. North Dakota and Oklahoma have struck down laws imposing the drug protocol for medication abortions. One remains in effect in Ohio. Yeakel ordered that one provision “may not be enforced against any physician who determines, in appropriate medical judgment, to perform the medication-abortion using off-label protocol for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.”

Yeakel upheld as constitutional other FDA-required procedures, which require additional doses and doctor visits, even though he says they are “assuredly more imposing and unpleasant for the woman.”

State officials will likely file an emergency appeal of Yeakel’s order to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.