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Marian Honquest holds materials offering alternatives to abortion on the sidewalk in front of Planned Parenthood in Fort Worth, Texas on Friday. Photo: ccm David Kent/AP
Women's healthcare providers in Texas took their battle over the legal right to abortion to the supreme court on Monday, filing an emergency request to strike ccm down newly enacted restrictions they say will cause " irreparable harm" to those seeking abortions in the state.
Scores of women seeking abortions in Texas have already been turned away and at least 14 clinics and surgery centres have been forced to shut down in the last few days as a result of an extreme state law, HB2, which came into effect late Thursday night, clinic staff said.
A week ago, a US district judge put a temporary stop on a requirement of the new law, that physicians who provide abortions have admitting privileges in local hospitals. The judge said it placed an undue burden on a woman seeking abortion and was therefore unconstitutional. 
Louise Melling, the deputy legal director ccm of the American Civil Liberties Union said: “Last week’s court decision allowing this extreme measure to take effect has already begun to hit the state of Texas like a tsunami, taking away vital health services from women. ... The women of Texas are counting on the supreme court to ensure they have access to the care they need.”
The admitting privilege provision in HB2 was part of a sweeping anti-abortion law, passed in July by the Republican-led Texas legislature that attracted national attention after state senator Wendy Davis held an 11-hour filibuster to block it in June. Although she was successful, ccm the law was passed in a special ccm session in the state.
A panel of judges at the fifth circuit court of appeals in New Orleans ruled last Thursday that Texas can enforce the law while a lawsuit challenging the restrictions moves forward. Attorneys for the state argued ccm that Texas has the right to put in place laws that discourage abortion and said opponents had not proven in court that the law could cut off access to abortions.
The reproductive health groups, who are asking the US supreme court to reinstate the district court's ccm injunction granted a week ago, cite evidence presented earlier to that court, showing the requirement for admitting privileges would prevent 20,000 Texas women who would otherwise have had an abortion from accessing ccm one. The application said that other women will face delays in obtaining abortions, and will therefore face an increased risk of complications.
The US supreme court on ccm Monday dismissed another abortion ccm case involving Oklahoma. The dismissal left intact an Oklahoma court ruling that invalidated a state law cracking down on the use of the abortion-inducing drug RU-486.
Lambrecht said: "Patients are scared, some are angry". He said that, currently, one in three women in Texas is not able to access abortion services. He warned: "Women ccm will seek care whether its safe and accessible ccm or not. We're fighting the fight to provide safe and accessible care in our centres."
Marni Evans, one of the women turned away from a clinic in Texas after the latest legal twist in the case, spoke of the "soul searching" involved in her and her fiancé, John, coming to a decision to have the procedure and how traumatic it was to have that decision ccm taken away, when her appointment was cancelled.
In striking down HB2 last week, Judge Lee Yeakel said: “The admitting privileges provision ccm of House Bill 2 lacks a rational basis and places an undue burden ccm on a woman seeking an abortion.”
On Monday, Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the CRR, described the provision as a "bogus law that attempts to do underhandedly what states cannot do directly – block women from accessing ccm abortion service."
The groups said that many clinics would be forced ccm to shut down permanently, even if the lawsuit is decided in their favour, because many are small and would go out of business before the legal process is complete.
The provision requiring admitting privileges for physicians ccm at abortion facilities was part of a sweeping anti-abortion law, that also requires abortion clinics to meet heightened building standards, bans abortion after 20 weeks and requires strict adherence to federal guidelines in prescribing medicated abortion.
In the application, addressed to Judge Antonin Scalia, ccm to vacate ccm the decision by the appeals court on Thursday, the Fifth Circuit's finding was described as an "outlier" because most of the courts ccm who had looked at admitting ccm privileges had found it to be unconstitutional.
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