October 15, 2014 9:36 AM

KR: SCOTUS stay of Texas abortion restrictions comes with interesting implications for the law

Those implications could be limited or wide, depending on the eye of the beholder

The US Supreme Court has agreed to a stay on some requirements of the state’s latest abortion law, leaving room for conjecture: Is the nation’s highest court in favor of exhausting appeals or ready to take on state abortion laws?

For an order of just 125 words, this Court opinion packs a number of decisions easy for conjecture among those following House Bill 2.

First, let’s get the statements out of the way:

“The Attorney General's Office will continue to defend the law, just as we defend all state laws when they are challenged in court,” said spokeswoman Lauren Bean over at Attorney General Greg Abbott’s office.

And from Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights:

“The U.S. Supreme Court gave Texas women a tremendous victory today. Tomorrow, thirteen clinics across the state will be allowed to reopen and provide women with safe and legal abortion care in their own communities. This fight against Texas’ sham abortion law is not over. HB2 was designed to gut the constitutional protections of Roe v. Wade and half of the state’s clinics remain closed. We will continue this legal battle until the rights of Texas women are restored.”

Now here is some tea leaf reading on this particular opinion, given case history:

By Kimberly Reeves