Texas Catholic Conference disappointed by court

ruling on abortion law

The Texas Catholic Conference expressed disappointment with the U.S. Supreme Court's 5-4 decision June 29, which temporarily blocks Texas from enforcing new requirements on abortion clinics that would force many of them to close.

The Texas law requires the clinics to meet the same standards as ambulatory surgical centers when performing abortions. Other provisions of the law, such as requiring abortion doctors to have hospital privileges and prohibiting abortions after 20 weeks gestation, were not affected.

In a June 9 ruling, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the constitutionality of the law, and rejected pleas by abortion clinics to suspend its implementation while it is appealed. The Supreme Court ruling prevents enforcement of the law until the fall when the high court will decide if the justices should hear an appeal from a lower court.

A June 30 statement from the Catholic conference, the public policy arm of the Texas Catholic bishops, said the bishops "grieve for the unborn children who will continue to die, and are concerned for the mothers who will subjected to substandard care, while the court delays until the fall to resolve this issue."

"While the Texas Catholic Conference opposes abortion, it equally values protecting and preserving the health of women, whose lives and dignity are just as precious as those destroyed by the act of abortion," the statement said.

"Short of closing these abortion facilities, abortionists must meet the most rigorous, mandatory standards of medical inspections and regulation," the statement added.

Legal analyst Lyle Denniston, writing for the SCOTUSblog, a blog on the Supreme Court, said June 29 that in the one-paragraph order on the ruling the justices did not explain why they were postponing consideration of the law.

If a review of the law is denied later, the order will be lifted, but if review is granted, it will stay in effect until there is a final ruling, Denniston said. He also noted that the doctors and clinics have not yet filed actual the petition for review involved in the appeal.

The Supreme Court was considering a similar appeal from Mississippi, which was seeking to enforce a hospital admissions privileges requirement that opponents say would force the state's last abortion clinic to close. The 5th Circuit, the same court involved in the Texas case, has blocked that law.

In its final rulings issued June 30, the court did not act on a challenge to Mississippi's abortion restrictions in Currier v. Jackson Women's Health Organization.