Here is a link to a recent decision by the 5th Circuit invalidating a Texas law limiting D & E abortions. The vote was 2-1. Judge Willett wrote an impassioned dissent. Texas is likely to continue to defend the law; the most likely next step would be for the state to ask the full 5th Circuit to rehear the case en banc.
Here is quote from Judge Willett’s dissent:
“The State of Texas is not seeking to ban this grisly procedure. But Texas does seek to unbrutalize it, requiring that an abortion doctor not dismember a living unborn child. SB8 does not proscribe D&E; it prescribes more humane D&E, one that substitutes merciful deaths for horrific ones. Few would disagree that tearing the limbs off a live fetus until it dies is more barbaric than tearing the limbs off a dead fetus, or injecting the fetus with a lethal substance first. Under SB8, developing human life must be extinguished before it is extracted, thus granting a measure of mercy and dignity to the unborn child’s final moments. As explained below, there is nothing unconstitutional about that.
Respectfully, I dissent.”