A Harris County ruled on Tuesday that Texas providers at some clinics can temporarily resume abortions up to six weeks of pregnancy.
The ruling comes a day after about a dozen abortion providers filed a lawsuit against the state of Texas over its pre-Roe laws that Attorney General Ken Paxton said could now be enforced.
Just hours after the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision overturning Dobbs v. Jackson under the Roe v. Wade precedent, Paxton issued an advisory stating providers could be criminally liable for performing abortions, citing a 1925 Texas statute that prohibited abortions. The statute was never repealed but nullified when the Roe v. Wade decision was made.
The judge’s order may be short-lived once the Texas’ trigger law goes into effect, with almost all abortions in Texas being outlawed.
In 2021, the Texas legislature passed a law in anticipation of Roe v. Wade getting overturned that would trigger an abortion ban in Texas. The law does not give exceptions in the case of rape or incest but will allow for exceptions in the case of a “life-threatening condition to the mother caused by the pregnancy.”
The Supreme Court decision eliminating the right to abortion and handing states authority to drastically limit or ban the procedure.
The 6-3 decision left it to the states to decide how to regulate – or outlaw – abortion. Twenty-two states, including Texas, have trigger laws in place that will outlaw abortion immediately.
The Supreme Court was hearing a case, Dobbs vs Jackson Women’s Health Organization that challenged the state of Mississippi’s ban on abortion after 15 weeks.
The court ruled in favor of Mississippi along ideological lines, with the judgement reading:
“We therefore hold that the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion ... and the authority to regulate abortion must be returned to the people and their elected representatives.”
Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority: “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have enflamed debate and deepened division.”
More than two dozen states, primarily in the South and Midwest, are expected to tighten abortion access as a result of Roe falling, including 13 states with “trigger bans” set to take effect automatically or through minimal effort by state officials.