Appeals Court Upholds Texas Restrictions on Abortion during Coronavirus Pandemic
A federal court ruled on Tuesday to uphold restrictions on abortions enacted by the state of Texas during the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic.
The 2-1 ruling by the 5th District Court of Appeals, based in New Orleans, La., overturned an injunction by a lower court against Texas’s restrictions. Judge Kyle Duncan, a Trump appointee, penned the ruling.
“The surge of COVID-19 cases causes mounting strains on healthcare systems, including critical shortages of doctors, nurses, hospital beds, medical equipment, and personal protective equipment (“PPE”). The executive order at issue here…responds to this crisis,” Duncan wrote.
“In a time where panic and fear already consume our daily lives, the majority’s opinion inflicts further panic and fear on women in Texas by depriving them, without justification, of their constitutional rights,” Judge James Dennis wrote in his dissent.
Texas governor Greg Abbott issued an executive order in March ordering the postponement of all non-necessary medical procedures. Abortion providers subsequently sued the state after the procedure was prohibited by the executive order.
“I find it extremely distressing . . . that we are trying to respond to a purely political fight that [Gov. Abbott] started. Patients who need abortions are on a time-sensitive deadline,” Sealy Massingill, the chief medical officer of Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas, said in announcing the suit.
Texas attorney general Ken Paxton slammed the lawsuit.
“It is unconscionable that abortion providers are fighting against the health of Texans and withholding desperately needed supplies and personal protective equipment in favor of a procedure that they refer to as a ‘choice,'” Paxton wrote on Twitter.
