Lawsuit filed against Texas abortion law

National women’s-rights groups and Texas abortion clinics f iled suit Friday in federal court in Texas, seeking to block provisions of a new state law that they said would have “dramatic and draconian effects” on women’s access to the procedure.

The lawsuit targets two provisions of a sweeping abortion law that Texas adopted in July. The rules are to take effect Oct. 29.

The first is a requirement that doctors who perform abortions have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. Many medical experts say the rule, which was passed in the name of safety, is medically unnecessary and cannot be met by clinics in smaller communities.

In a telephone news conference Friday, Texas clinic owners said that the rule might force one-third of thestate’s 36 abortion clinics to shut down, leaving large areas of the state without ready access.

The second provision requires use in medication abortions of what many doctors called an outdated, less effective and more dangerous drug protocol. Under guidelines based on research studies, the twodrug combination is widely used through the ninth week of pregnancy and accounts for about 1 in 5 abortions nationwide.

Under the Texas law, clinics would have to follow, instead, a regime described in the original Food and Drug Administration approval in 2000. Based on initial studies, it required doses three times largerthan those of the current protocol and an extra visit to the clinic, and was recommended only through seven weeks of pregnancy.

“Politicians are interfering with the personalmedical decisions of women who already have the least access to birth control and preventive health care,” said Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, one of the groups filing the lawsuit.

Gov. Rick Perry, who has said he hopes to make abortion “a thing of the past,” signed the legislation in July after calling a special session of the Legislature to pass it. The bill had come under a national spotlight when Wendy Davis, a Democratic state senator, temporarily derailed passage in the Republican-controlled Legislature with a filibuster.

Perry and Republican leaders described the law as important to protect women’s health. Opponents called it an unconstitutional attack on abortion rights and a thinly disguised effort to close clinics.

“This law is part of a coordinated national strategy” by anti-abortion groups seeking “to make it impossible to obtain an abortion,” said Jennifer Dalven, director of the Reproductive Freedom Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, another party to the suit along with the Center for Reproductive Rights.

The lawsuit, Planned Parenthood v. Abbott, was f iled Friday morning in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, in Austin. The goal is to obtain a preliminary injunction to prevent the two measures from taking effect.

The office of Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, the lead defendant, had not commented on the suit as of Friday afternoon.

Emily Horne, a legislative associate with Texas Right to Life, said, “I believe the law will be found constitutional” and “overall, it’s a great thing forwomen’s health.”

Similar laws are under litigation in several other states and in most cases have been blocked. In Alabama, Mississippi, North Dakota and Wisconsin, courts have said that requiring physicians to have admitting privileges was an unjustified obstacle to abortion rights.

Courts in North Dakota and Oklahoma have struck down laws imposing the earlier drug protocol for medication abortions, but one remains in effect in Ohio.

Friday’s lawsuit does not challenge two other provisions of the Texas law - a requirement that all abortion clinics meet the costly architectural and staffing standards of ambulatory surgery centers and a ban on nearly all abortions at 20 weeks after conception, based on the disputed theory that the fetus can feel pain at that point.

The surgery center requirement, which major doctors’ groups say is medically unnecessary for all but the latest-stage abortions, could force a majority of the state’s abortion clinics to close. But it does not take effect until September 2014, giving abortion-rights advocates time to consider their response.

Texas was the 12th state to adopt a 20-week ban, which legal experts say is in conflict with Supreme Court decisions granting a right to abortion until the fetus is viable outside the womb, usually at about 24 weeks. Courts have blocked such measures in the three states where they have been challenged, but they remainin effect in others.

In Friday’s news conference, the groups said they were studying the issue but for now were focusing on the two provisions likely to have the most immediate and far-reaching effects.

Front Section, Pages 6 on 09/28/2013

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