By Paul Weber, Anthony Izaguirre and Stephen Groves —
The Associated Press
The Texas Supreme Court has blocked a lower court order that had allowed clinics in the state to continue providing abortions even after the nation's Supreme Court overturned its landmark 1973 ruling protecting the constitutional right to abortion.
It was not immediately clear whether Texas clinics that resumed providing abortions just days ago will suspend services again following Friday night's ruling.
A hearing is scheduled for later this month.
Since Roe v.
Wade has added to the confusion at Texas clinics turning patients away, changing appointments and now being able to cancel appointments again.
A Houston judge issued an order Tuesday that some clinics
could temporarily resume abortions up to six weeks pregnant.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton rushed to ask the state's highest court, made up of nine Republican justices, to temporarily suspend that order.
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"These laws are confusing, unnecessary and cruel," Marc Hearron, an attorney with the Center for Reproductive Rights, said after the order was issued Friday night.
[Changing laws on access to abortion in several states create confusion for patients and clinics]
Clinics in Texas — a state of nearly 30 million people — stopped providing abortions after the nation's highest court last week overturned Roe v.
Wade.
Abortion rights protesters hold signs and protest near the State Capitol in Austin, Texas, on June 25, 2022. SUZANNE CORDEIRO / AFP via Getty Images
Attorneys for the Texas clinics provided the AP with a copy of Friday's order, which was not immediately available on the court's website.
Abortion providers and patients across the country have been struggling to navigate the changing legal landscape around abortion laws and access.
In
Florida,
a law banning abortions after 15 weeks went into effect Friday, a day after a judge ruled it a violation of the state constitution and said he would sign an order temporarily blocking the law next week. .
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The right to abortion has been lost and regained in a few days in
Kentucky.
A law imposing a near-total ban on the procedure went into effect last Friday, but a judge blocked the law on Thursday, meaning the state's only two abortion providers can return to seeing patients.
For now.
A South Dakota
law went into effect Friday
that threatens to make it a felony for anyone who prescribes abortion medication without a license from the South Dakota Board of Osteopathic and Medical Examiners.
In
Alabama,
Attorney General Steve Marshall's office said it is reviewing whether individuals or groups could be prosecuted for helping women finance and travel to out-of-state abortion appointments.
Legal wrangling is almost certain to continue to wreak havoc for people seeking abortions in the near future, as court rulings disrupt access at any given time and an influx of new out-of-state patients overwhelms providers.
Even when women travel outside states that ban abortion, they may have fewer options to end their pregnancies as the prospect of prosecution haunts them.
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Planned Parenthood of Montana this week stopped offering medical abortions to patients living in ban states "to minimize potential risk to providers, facility staff and patients in a rapidly changing landscape."
Planned Parenthood North Central States, which offers the procedure in Minnesota, Iowa and Nebraska, is telling patients they must take both pills in the regimen in a state that allows abortions.
The use of abortion pills has been the most common method of terminating a pregnancy since 2000, when the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved mifepristone, the main drug used in medical abortions.
Taken with misoprostol, a drug that causes cramps that empty the uterus, it constitutes the abortion pill.
Protesters gather near the state capitol following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v.
Wade, on Friday, June 24, 2022, in Austin, Texas. Eric Gay / AP
"There's a lot of confusion and concern about the risk to providers trying to limit their liability so they can care for people who need it," said Dr. Daniel Grossman, who directs the Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health research group at the University of California at San Francisco.
