AUSTIN, Texas — A Texas law requiring women seeking abortions to undergo a sonogram, and physicians to provide an audible heartbeat and physical description of the baby, is constitutional and may be enforced, a federal appeals court has ruled.
The decision by a three-judge panel of the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals Jan. 10 overturned a temporary injunction issued last summer against Texas House Bill (HB) 15, known as the Texas Sonogram Law. U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks of Austin had argued that the law placed the state in a position of advancing an “ideological agenda,” was “unconstitutionally vague” and violated the free speech rights of physicians and women.
Meanwhile, the New York City-based Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR), which filed a class action lawsuit against HB 15 on behalf of Texas abortion providers last June, vowed to fight the appeals court ruling.
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