Texas Supreme Court blocks order that resumes safe abortions

The Texas Supreme Court has blocked a lower court order that had allowed clinics in the state to continue performing abortions even after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned its landmark 1973 ruling that confirmed a constitutional right to abortion.

It was not immediately clear whether the clinics in Texas that resumed performing abortions just days ago would halt services again following the ruling late Friday night. A hearing is scheduled for later this month.

The whiplash of Texas clinics turning away patients, rescheduling them, and now potentially canceling appointments again, all in the span of a week, illustrates the confusion and scrambling that has taken place across the country since Roe v. Wade was overturned.

An order by a Houston judge on Tuesday had reassured some clinics they could temporarily resume abortions up to six weeks into pregnancy. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton quickly asked the state’s highest court, which is stocked with nine Republican justices, to temporarily put that order on hold.

“These laws are confusing, unnecessary, and cruel,” said Marc Hearron, attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights, after the order was issued Friday night.

Clinics in Texas, a state of nearly 30 million people, stopped performing abortions after the U.S. Supreme Court last week overturned Roe v. Wade.

Texas had left an abortion ban on the books for the past 50 years while Roe was in place. Attorneys for Texas clinics provided a copy of Friday’s order, which was not immediately available on the court’s website. Meanwhile, more than half of Texans would make abortion legal in most cases in their state, and most think women will still seek abortions, despite the Supreme Court ruling and local laws. Abortion providers and patients across the country have been struggling to navigate the evolving legal landscape around abortion laws and access.