AUSTIN, Texas — A federal appeals court Thursday declined to reconsider a March decision that allowed Texas to require abortion doctors to gain admitting privileges in a nearby hospital.
Abortion providers had asked the full 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to review the unanimous decision by a three-judge panel, arguing that some doctors have been unable to comply, forcing clinics to close and placing an unconstitutional burden on women seeking an abortion.
That request was denied, without elaboration, 12-3.
However, the order included an unusually long and forceful 62-page dissent by Justice James Dennis, who said the court’s original decision to allow the admitting privileges rule “flouts” standards established by the U.S. Supreme Court to determine when abortion regulations pose an undue burden on women.
“If not overruled,” Dennis wrote, “the panel’s sham undue burden test will continue to exert its precedential force in courts’ review of challenges to similar types of recently minted abortion restrictions in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi,” the states in the 5th Circuit’s district.
