Fifth Circuit Rules Texas Can Restrict Medication Abortions During Covid-19 Crisis
Source: Courthouse News
DAVID LEE April 20, 2020
NEW ORLEANS (CN) — The Fifth Circuit restored Texas’ ban on most abortions during the Covid-19 pandemic Monday evening, criticizing an Austin federal trial judge for ignoring its earlier reinstatement and for erroneously allowing medication abortions to continue.
In a 2–1 ruling, a three-judge panel with the New Orleans-based appeals court granted a petition for writ of mandamus to Governor Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton — both Republicans — to revoke U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel’s April 9 temporary restraining order allowing medication abortions for pregnancies up to ten weeks’ gestation and surgical abortions for pregnancies reaching 18 weeks.
U.S. Circuit Judge Kyle Duncan — an appointee of President Donald Trump — and U.S. Circuit Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod — an appointee of President George W. Bush — blasted the trial judge’s “patently erroneous results and usurpation of the state’s authority to craft emergency health measures” in carving the two exceptions. They scolded Yeakel for ignoring “the entire point of a mitigation measure” like Abbott’s abortion ban.
“The concept of ‘flattening the curve’ has become all-too-familiar during the pandemic: as applied to GA-09, it means that delaying procedures now may prevent short-term exhaustion of critical medical resources,” the 26-page opinion states. “This is one stated goal of GA-09: it does not prohibit non-essential procedures, it delays them. As its findings show, however, the district court preferred to second-guess this strategy.”
Read more: https://www.courthousenews.com/fifth-circuit-rules-texas-can-restrict-medication-abortions-during-covid-19-crisis/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=fifth-circuit-rules-texas-can-restrict-medication-abortions-during-covid-19-crisis
Judge Kyle Duncan
Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod
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