Tyler Morning Telegraph by Bethany Blankley 8/24/2021
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a 2017 Texas law outlawing a second trimester abortion procedure called D&E (dilation and evacuation), or dismemberment.
In 2017, the Texas legislature passed the Texas Dismemberment Abortion Ban with bipartisan support, making D&Es a felony and banning them from being performed except in the case of an emergency. After the law passed and before it went into effect, Whole Women’s Health, several Planned Parenthood groups, several doctors, and others, sued in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas.
The district court ruled in their favor, blocking the law from going into effect. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office appealed, and a three-judge panel on the Fifth Circuit upheld the lower court’s ruling last October.
Paxton then asked the full 17-member court to review the case, and in January, they agreed. Eight months later, in an en banc review, nine judges on the New Orleans-based appeals court ruled in favor of the Texas statute, five against, and three recused themselves.
More:
https://tylerpaper.com/news/texas/fifth-circuit-upholds-texas-abortion-ban/article_47c39770-a002-50ab-91e1-e0251006fa49.html
