New law, which will shutter all but seven abortion clinics in the state, will now go into effect after court decision

A Texas law that shutters all but a handful of abortion clinics in the state will now go fully into effect after a decision on Thursday by a panel in one of the nation’s most conservative courts.

The panel in the fifth US circuit court of appeals stayed a federal district court judge’s decision from August that had blocked a controversial provision of the law from going into effect while the appeals court considers its constitutionality.

Thursday’s decision leaves the second largest state in the US with only eight abortion clinics.

Texas abortion maps Graphic: Nadja Popovich, Kenton Powell and Feilding Cage/The Guardian

“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 Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which challenged the law, said in a statement.

The provision requires all abortion clinics in the state to meet hospital-style building requirements that opponents of the measure say are costly and unnecessarily burdensome – the stringent operational requirements would force clinics to spend millions to comply, which most can’t afford. As a result, critics say, clinics will close and many Texas women will have their access to abortion restricted.

The measure is a part of the state’s omnibus abortion law, a version of which was famously filibustered by state senator Wendy Davis, a Democrat now running for governor. The law shortens the timeframe for legal abortions to 20 weeks, requires abortion providers to maintain hospital admitting privileges, places new restrictions on medicated abortions, and compels clinics to meet the same building requirements as ambulatory surgical centres. The provisions have been rolled out in stages.



Nearly half of the state’s abortion clinics have closed since July 2013 when Governor Rick Perry signed the restrictive law.

The Texas law is part of a relatively recent legislative trend to limit access to abortions by regulating facilities, providers and doctors, rather than the women seeking the procedure. The added red tape forces clinics that cannot afford to make the upgrades to close.

“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 the Texas attorney general’s office, which defended the law, said in a statement.



The panel made one exception in its decision: an El Paso clinic is not required to meet the ambulatory-surgical centre requirements, but it is still required to get hospital-admitting privileges. Therefore, the clinic, which had already closed, will remain closed. The nearest clinic for El Paso women seeking an abortion will be over 550 miles away.



“It’s a concession that has no meaning,” said Jan Soifer, an Austin attorney representing abortion providers in the case. She said the El Paso clinic had previously tried to get admitting privileges and was unable to do so.

The decision is not the final word on the matter, as the court was ruling on whether the law should be prevented from going into effect while the case works its way through the courts, not on the merits of the case.

“But I think you can read this opinion as foreshadowing of what that’s going to be,” said Carl Tobias, a constitutional law professor at the University of Richmond school of law.

Tobias said the plaintiffs could next ask the whole appeals court to review Thursday’s decision or petition the US supreme court to take up the case. The centre in its statement said it was exploring “all available options”.