Health Clinics Challenge New Restrictive Regulations in Texas That Could Shut Down Yet More Abortion Providers

The New York Times: Abortion Providers in Texas Sue Over a Restrictive Rule That Could Close Clinics, by Erik Eckholm:

Health clinics offering abortions in Texas filed a federal lawsuit on Wednesday to block a new state rule that could shut down more than half of the state’s remaining providers this fall, forcing women seeking an abortion in southern and western Texas to drive several hundred miles each way or go out of state.

The rule, part of a sweeping anti-abortion law passed last year, requires that all clinics providing abortions at any stage of pregnancy, including nonsurgical drug-induced abortions, meet the costly building standards of ambulatory surgery centers. . . . .

The new suit comes less than a week after a federal appeals court refused to overturn another provision of the 2013 law that has already forced several clinics to close, leaving the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas without abortion services. . . .

“The greater the evidence that this rule will cause more clinics to close, and leave large areas of the state without abortion providers, the greater their chance of success,” said Caitlin E. Borgmann, an expert on reproductive law at the CUNY School of Law. . . .