Supreme Court steps in to keep Texas’s abortion clinics open for now

For the second time, the Supreme Court has stepped in to temporarily save most of Texas’s abortion clinics from having to shut their doors. 

The Supreme Court acted Monday to keep Texas’ 19 abortion clinics open, amid a legal fight that threatens to close more than half of them.

The justices voted 5-4 to grant an emergency appeal from the clinics after a federal appeals court upheld new clinic regulations and refused to keep them on hold while the clinics appealed to the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court order will remain in effect at least until the court decides whether to hear the clinics’ appeal of the lower court ruling, not before the fall.

As the AP points out, blocking the regulations from taking effect is a good indication that SCOTUS plans to take up the case, which would be the most important abortion case the court has heard in decades. The brief order doesn’t, however, provide many clues to how they would rule. But as ThinkProgress notes, the fact that Justice Kennedy didn’t side with the rest of the conservative judges in dissenting is a good sign.

Header image credit: John Jack Anderson