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 The high court granted a request filed by abortion rights groups
that puts on hold parts of a federal appeals court decision that had
allowed the law to go into effect.
The brief court order said that requirements that clinics have
certain hospital-like settings for surgeries could not go into
effect pending appeal.
The requirement that was to have gone into effect on Sept. 1 would
require clinics to meet a set of building standards ranging from
widening halls to having facilities for certain surgeries that
abortion rights advocates said were unnecessary, especially when an
abortion is medically induced.
The state argued the requirements in the Texas law would reduce
complications and increase patient care.
The order also said that a provision that requires abortion
practitioners to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30
miles (48 km) of the clinic could not be enforced for clinics in
McAllen and El Paso, cities near the Mexican border. The provision
will be in force in the rest of the state.
U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel in August struck down the requirement
for these two cities, saying women in those areas would have to
travel as much as 500 miles (805 km) to go to an abortion clinic.
Abortion rights groups have said the regulations are unnecessary and
served as an attempt to shut clinics.
Three conservatives on the nine-justice high court, Antonin Scalia,
Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, said they would have allowed the
law to go into effect in full.
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The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans said on Oct. 2
that Texas could begin enforcing both requirements.
Abortion rights groups have said the measures as a whole would
shutter all but seven clinics in the state.
"We're seeing the terrible impact these restrictions have on
thousands of Texas women who effectively no longer have access to
safe and legal abortion. We're relieved that the court stepped in to
stop this, and we hope this dangerous law is ultimately overturned
completely," said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood
Federation of America.
(Additional reporting by Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Editing by
Will Dunham and Eric Walsh)
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