LUBBOCK, Texas, Sept 24 (Reuters) – Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Friday signed a brand new legislation that restricts entry to abortion-inducing drugs, simply weeks after the state rolled out a near-total ban on abortion procedures.
The legislation on drugs prohibits mail-order abortion-inducing medicine and says docs within the state are solely allowed to prescribe them as much as seven weeks after conception. Beforehand that restriction was set at 10 weeks.
“Texas continues to prepared the ground in defending unborn kids and fostering a tradition of life,” Abbott stated in a written assertion. “We’ve taken monumental steps to avoid wasting infants from the ravages of abortion.”
Texas is on the middle of the talk over abortion in america, enacting probably the most restrictive abortion legal guidelines within the nation throughout current legislative periods.
On Sept. 1, a brand new Texas legislation went into impact that bans the process after a fetal heartbeat is detected – which is at about six weeks generally. Abortion rights teams say that 85% to 90% of all abortions are carried out after six weeks.
Texas is amongst a dozen principally Republican-led states which have enacted “heartbeat” abortion bans that outlaw the process as soon as the rhythmic contracting of fetal cardiac tissue will be detected – which is at occasions earlier than a girl realizes she is pregnant. Courts have blocked such bans.
However the Texas legislation empowers personal residents anyplace to sue abortion suppliers and anyone who assists a girl in getting one. That helped defend the legislation from being instantly blocked because it made it tougher to immediately sue the federal government.
Abortion suppliers in Texas on Thursday requested the U.S. Supreme Court docket to intervene on an pressing foundation of their problem to a state legislation imposing a near-total ban on abortion. L1N2QP2KJ
Reporting by Brad Brooks in Lubbock, Texas; Modifying by Sam Holmes
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