Suit strikes at ban on type of abortion
AUSTIN — Abortion providers and advocates filed a lawsuit in federal court Thursday to challenge a new Texas law banning a common second-trimester medical procedure, the latest in a long-running series of legal fights over women’s health in the state.
Abortion providers stressed in their 19-page lawsuit that the procedure is the “safest and most common” method of abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, and a ban would create an undue burden for women to terminate a pregnancy. The lawsuit had been anticipated in a state known for passing some of the nation’s toughest abortion restrictions.
“It’s very obvious that the intent of the law is to be an abortion ban and to restrict doctors’ decision
making,” said Amy Hagstrom Miller, founder, president and CEO of Whole Woman’s Health, one of the plaintiffs. “Politicians are tying the hands of doctors and not letting doctors use their expertise.”
The Republican-led Legislature passed Senate Bill 8 this spring, ushering into law comprehensive abortion regulations that banned dilation and evacuation, a medical procedure used to remove a fetus using surgical tools. The method is most common in the second trimester.
According to 2015 data, the latest available, the procedure was used 4,386 times to terminate a pregnancy. In total, 55,287 abortions were performed that year, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services.
Abortion opponents say they favor the ban on what they call a “dismemberment abortion,” but the director of the Texas Alliance for Life said he expects the court will shoot the law down.
“We are not confident that this will withstand a court challenge,” said Joe Pojman, executive director of the anti-abortion organization. He said the U.S. Supreme Court needs two more votes to uphold the law and warned legislators during the regular session that the law would likely fail.
‘The right discussion’
Other abortion opponents say they think the court will side with Texas.
“This is the right discussion that the court needs to be having,” said Emily Horne, a lobbyist with Texas Right to Life. “It brings the attention back to the child.”
Women seek the procedure for many reasons, according to the suit, including late confirmation of the pregnancy, difficulty gathering funds or making arrangements to obtain an abortion, or choosing to terminate a pregnancy due to fetal abnormalities discovered during the second trimester.
The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court in the Western District of Texas, comes more than a year after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a pair of regulations that forced several abortion clinics around the state to close. The court ruled the state could not require abortion facilities to adhere to the stringent standards of an ambulatory surgical center, nor could it require abortion providers to obtain admitting privileges at a nearby hospital.
Planned Parenthood and the Center for Reproductive Rights filed that suit on behalf of Whole Woman’s Health and other providers. The ruling handed abortion supporters a major political victory. However, by the time the high court struck down portions of the law, the number of abortion clinics in Texas fell from 41 to 19.
Legal challenges
Many of the same plaintiffs are involved in the new lawsuit, including the Planned Parenthood Center for Choice in Houston, the Alamo City Surgery Center in San Antonio, the Southwestern Women’s Surgery Center in Dallas, Nova Health Systems in El Paso, and several family practice physicians and obstetricians who are suing on their own behalf and on behalf of their patients.
Abortion supporters have filed legal challenges to similar dilation and evacuation bans in Arkansas, Alabama, Kansas, Louisiana and Oklahoma.
The legal action also comes as the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals mulls another regulation requiring burial rights for fetal tissue, which lawmakers also wrote into state law this year.
Advocates for the law say the dilation and evacuation abortion procedure is grotesque, and passing the law keeps with the state’s imperative to protect life and oppose abortion.
Gov. Greg Abbott has asked state lawmakers to pass additional anti-abortion laws this summer in his special session call, such as banning coverage of abortion in government health care plans.
Several of those bills are up for debate at 8 a.m. Friday in the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, and another is up for a vote in the Senate Business and Commerce Committee at 9 a.m. Saturday.