Judge orders Texas to suspend new law banning most abortions

AUSTIN, Texas - A federal judge on Wednesday ordered Texas to suspend the most restrictive abortion law in the U.S., which since September has banned most abortions in the nation's second-most populous state.

The order by U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman is the first legal blow to the Texas law known as Senate Bill 8, which until now had withstood a wave of early challenges. In the weeks since the restrictions took effect, Texas abortion providers say the impact has been "exactly what we feared."

In a 113-page opinion, Pitman took Texas to task over the law, saying Republicans lawmakers had "contrived an unprecedented and transparent statutory scheme" to deny patients their constitutional right to an abortion.

https://www.startribune.com/judge-orders-texas-to-suspend-new-law-banning-most-abortions/600104312/