U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel ruled the abortion restrictions passed by Texas Legislature are unconstitutional and will not take effect on Tuesday as planned, the Associated Press reported.
Judge Yeakel blocked a provision of a new law which requires "doctors who perform abortions to have an agreement with a local hospital to admit patients" instead working out of their own private clinics. According to Reuters, it will be the physicians' decision "whether to administer the so-called 'abortion pill' in medical emergencies."
The ruling came after a suit by Planned Parenthood and is seen as a win for pro-choice supporters. Other provisions of the law will take effect Tuesday, including a ban on abortion after 20 weeks gestation and a requirement that abortion facilities meet emergency center standards, according to Reuters.
The restrictions gained notoriety when Senator Wendy Davis, who is now running for governor on a women's rights platform, launched a 13-hour-filibuster against the restrictions in June, according to the AP. The filibuster forced Governor Rick Perry to call a second special legislative session for the Republican-controlled Legislature to pass the law.
Judge Yeakel wrote Monday that "the regulations violated the rights of abortion doctors to do what they think is best for their patients," and would "unreasonably restrict a woman's access to abortion clinics," the AP reported.
Planned Parenthood lawyers teamed with other abortion providers and argued that requiring doctors to admit patients to a hospital would close a third of the abortion clinics in Texas, adding that requiring doctors to follow the Food and Drug Administration's original label for an abortion-inducing drug would deny women the benefit of recent advances in medical science, the AP reported.
Officials for one of the abortion clinic chains testified during the trial and said their clinic had tried to obtain admitting privileges for their doctors at 32 different hospitals and 15 applications were accepted, but none of the hospitals have announced a decision, the AP reported.
According to the AP, the problem is many hospitals have requirements like a doctor needs to live within a certain radius of the facility, or the doctor needs to perform a certain amount of surgeries a year in the hospital. Others won't accept the clinics because of religious affiliations, or fear of protest.
Last year, Mississippi passed a similar law that was also blocked by a federal judge and is still pending trial in March.
In Texas, Yeakel's decision is final, and the 5th Circuit will begin to review the law instead of forming an injunction against it, the AP reported.
