The Texas Supreme Court has blocked a lower court order that said clinics could continue performing abortions days after some doctors resumed seeing patients after the fall of Roe v Wade.
It was not immediately clear whether Texas clinics that resumed seeing patients would stop seeing patients this week. A hearing is going to take place later this month.
The confusion and scrambling taking place across the country after Roe was overturned, the spate of Texas clinics turning away patients, rescheduling them, and now cancelling appointments in the span of a week.
An order by a Houston judge earlier this week had reassured some clinics that they could temporarily resume abortions up to six weeks into pregnancy. The order was temporarily put on hold by the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, who asked the state s highest court, stacked with Republican justices, to temporarily put it on hold.
Marc Hearron, a lawyer for the Center for Reproductive Rights, said these laws are confusing, unnecessary and cruel.
After the US Supreme Court last week overturned Roe v Wade, ending the constitutional right to abortion, clinics in Texas stopped performing abortions in the state of nearly 30 million people. Texas had had an abortion ban on the books for the past 50 years while Roe was in place.
A copy of Friday's order was provided by Texas clinics. It could not be found immediately on the court's website.
Abortion providers and patients have been struggling to navigate the changing legal landscape surrounding abortion laws and access.
In Florida a law banning abortions after 15 weeks came into effect on Friday after a judge called it a violation of the state constitution and said he would sign an order blocking the law next week. The ban could have a broader impact in the south, where Florida has more access to the procedure than its neighbours.
Abortion rights have been lost and regained in Kentucky in the span of a few days. A trigger law imposing a near total ban on the procedure took effect last Friday, but a judge blocked the law on Thursday, meaning the state s only two abortion providers can resume seeing patients for now.
Emily Bisek, a spokesman for Planned Parenthood North Central States, said that in an unknown legal environment, they told patients they must be in a state where it is legal to complete medical abortion, which requires taking two drugs 24 to 48 hours apart. She said most patients from states with bans are expected to opt for surgical abortions.
Access to the pills has become a key battle in abortion rights, with the Biden administration trying to argue that states can't ban a medication that has received FDA approval.
A South Dakota law took effect on Friday that would make it felony punishing anyone who prescribes medication for an abortion without a license from the South Dakota Board of Medical and Osteopathic Examiners.
In Alabama, the office of the attorney general, Steve Marshall, said it was looking into whether people or groups could be charged with aiding women fund and travel to out-of-state abortion appointments.