Abortions can resume in Texas after a judge on Tuesday blocked officials from enforcing a nearly century-old ban the state's Republican attorney general said was back in effect after the US Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to the procedure nationwide.
The temporary restraining order by Judge Christine Weems in Harris County was a last-ditch bid by abortion providers to resume services after the US Supreme Court overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that guaranteed the right of women to obtain abortions.
The order allows clinics to resume services for now in a state where abortion was already severely restricted to only six weeks of pregnancy because of a Texas law that took effect in September that the US Supreme Court refused to block.
Every hour that abortion is available in Texas is a victory, said Marc Hearron, a lawyer for the abortion providers at Center for Reproductive Rights.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said on Twitter he was immediately appealing the judge's decision, saying the pre-Roe laws are 100% constitutional. A further hearing is scheduled for July 12.
There have been a lot of litigation in state courts by abortion rights groups trying to halt restrictions on the ability of women to terminate pregnancies that are now taking effect or are poised to do so in 22 states.
The Guttmacher Institute, a abortion rights advocacy group, said that 13 states like Texas enacted so-called trigger laws designed to take effect if Roe v. Wade is overturned.
Federal courts have been lifting orders blocking Republican-backed abortion restrictions after the Supreme Court's decision. A federal appeals court cleared the way for a six-week ban in Tennessee on Tuesday.
In an advisory issued by the US Supreme Court, Paxton said the state's 2021 trigger ban, which bars abortion almost entirely, wouldn't take immediate effect. Providers say that could take two months or more.
Paxton said prosecutors could immediately pursue criminal charges against abortion providers based on a different old statute that had gone unforced while Roe v. Wade was on the books but remained Texas law.
Texas abortion providers filed a lawsuit on Monday arguing that the 1925 ban had been repealed and conflicted with the recent trigger ban that the Republican-dominated legislature passed.
The lawsuit was filed the same day that judges in Louisiana and Utah blocked officials from enforcing their states' trigger bans, and abortion providers in Idaho, Kentucky and Mississippi sued to get similar relief.
In Wisconsin, the Democratic attorney general sued Republican leaders of the state legislature to block the state's strict anti-abortion law in 1849, saying it had been overshadowed by other Wisconsin laws that were passed after Roe.
We promised to fight this decision and these attacks on reproductive freedom in every way we can with every power we have, Democratic Governor Tony Evers said on Twitter in support of the lawsuit.
The Oklahoma Supreme Court in a 8 -- 1 decision on Monday rejected a request by providers to block the implementation of a near-total ban on abortions that took effect in May, before the US Supreme Court's decision on the issue, after a draft version leaked.
In Iowa, where the state's top court ruled that the constitution of Iowa does not include a fundamental right to abortion, Republican Governor Kim Reynolds said on Tuesday that she will ask a court to reinstate a previously struck down fetal heartbeat law banning abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy.