Abortion providers have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block a lower-court ruling allowing Texas to fully enforce tough restrictions approved last year on the procedure.
The New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights filed an emergency application with justices on Monday. It seeks to reinstate an injunction a federal judge imposed against the 2013 law.
In August, U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel in Austin blocked a provision of the law requiring clinics to pay for hospital-level upgrades. Yeakel found that those rules were less about safety than making access to abortion difficult.
But last week, a 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel in New Orleans stayed Yeakel's ruling. That left as few as seven abortion providers in America's second-most populous state.
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