AUSTIN, Texas, Nov. 4 (UPI) -- Abortion rights advocates said they have filed an emergency appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to halt implementation of strict new abortion laws in Texas.
Planned Parenthood of Texas and other pro-choice groups filed the appeal Monday after a three-judge panel on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans overturned a stay ordered by U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel, who found unconstitutional the law's requirement that abortion-providing doctors be required to have admitting privileges at a local hospital. Yeakel said the provision constituted an unconstitutional hurdle to a woman's right to medical care.
The practical impact, The Dallas Morning News reported Monday, is about a third of the state's abortion clinics closed in the wake of the 5th Circuit's ruling.
Planned Parenthood lawyers said they've appealed to the nation's highest court -- where challenges to abortion laws seemed destined to end up eventually. Laws in four other states requiring abortion clinic doctors to have admitting privileges have been shot down but remain on appeal.
