By: Jardine Malado
A judge has thrown out provisions of a Texas law that would have prohibited dismemberment abortions, which is commonly used in the second trimester to terminate pregnancies.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel had issued a permanent injunction against the provisions contained in Senate Bill 8, which was aimed at banning doctors from performing dilation and evacuation abortions.
In his ruling, Yeakel argued that the provisions were “facially unconstitutional” and that it “intervenes in the medical process of abortion prior to viability in an unduly burdensome manner.”
Yeakel contended that women would “suffer irreparable harm by being unable to access the most commonly used and safest previability-second-trimester-abortion procedure.”
The judge further stated that “dismemberment abortion” was not a medical term used by physicians, and asserted that the aim of the measure was to ban the dilation and evacuation procedure.
Yeakel’s decision came just as the restraining order he placed on the legislation was set to expire on Wednesday.
Joe Pojman, executive director of Texas Alliance For Life (TAL), slammed the ruling, and commended Paxton for his “robust defense of the law.”
“U.S. Supreme Court precedent does not allow states to protect non-viable unborn babies from abortion, even when the methods entails dismembering the baby during the abortion. Most people find abortion by this method to be abhorrent,” he said, as reported by Life Site News.