The US Supreme Court [official website] on Monday granted a motion to stay [order, PDF], allowing over half of Texas’ 18 abortion clinics to stay open by temporarily blocking a law [HB 2] that would place stringent requirements on clinics requiring the majority of them to close. The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit [official website] earlier this month upheld [opinion, PDF] some of the strictest parts of the Texas abortion law [JURIST report], which allowed the state to require abortion clinics to satisfy hospital-level operating standards including minimum room size and staffing levels. The law also required doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. The stay is in effect while the court considers whether to hear the case.

Abortion [JURIST archive] related issues have been a heated topic of discussion for the past several years in the US. Earlier this month the North Carolina legislature gave final approval [JURIST report] to the Women and Children’s Protection Act of 2015, which mandates a 72-hour waiting period for abortions after a woman has been informed of her options and the risks of the procedure, except in the case of a medical emergency. In May the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [official website] struck down [JURIST report] two parts of Idaho abortion laws-one which banned all abortions after 20 weeks, and the other which required that women seeking abortions in their second trimester do so in a hospital. Also in May Tennessee adopted a law [JURIST report] that requires 48-hour waiting periods for women seeking an abortion. In April Alabama state representative Teri Collins proposed a bill to ban abortion [JURIST report] once a fetal heartbeat has been detected.