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August 30, 2014      10:50 AM

In abortion ruling, Yeakel criticizes State’s witness coaching which undercuts Texas' future appeal

“That the State suggests that these seven or eight providers could meet the demand of the entire state stretches credulity,” Yeakel wrote.

US District Judge Lee Yeakel, in a startling blow to the state’s efforts to uphold its new abortion law, struck down two key provisions of the bill that would have all but guaranteed closure of the majority of the state’s abortion clinics: hospital admitting privileges for doctors and upgrades to ambulatory surgical centers for clinics.

What made Yeakel’s judgment even more striking occurred in the conclusions of his 21-page opinion. In a pre-trial memorandum, Yeakel instructed the two sides he was inclined to consider a geographic-centric ruling: one that focused on an undue burden upon women seeking abortions in the Rio Grande Valley and El Paso.

That’s how the three-part conclusion in his opinion starts: the ambulatory surgical center requirement was an undue burden upon women and should be severed from the Act; hospital admitting privileges, as applied to the plaintiffs, should be enjoined from McAllen and El Paso abortion clinics; and an ambulatory surgical center requirement, in practice, was unnecessary and an undue burden for early abortions induced by medications.

Then, in the final paragraph of his opinion, Yeakel noted the two provisions, when taken together, “create a scheme that effects the closing of almost all abortion clinics that were operating legally in the fall of 2013.”

By Kimberly Reeves