Appeals court upholds Texas law to ban abortion procedure

By KEVIN McGILL
Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A federal appeals court in New Orleans has upheld a Texas law outlawing a commonly used second-trimester abortion procedure. A federal judge had blocked the ban on the procedure known as dilation and extraction. The 2017 law in question has never been enforced. It prohibits the use of forceps to remove a fetus from the womb — what supporters of the law call a “dismemberment abortion” — without first using an injected drug or a suction procedure to ensure the fetus is dead. Abortion rights advocates argued that the law effectively outlaws what is often the safest method of abortion for women in the second trimester of pregnancy — a procedure medically known as dilation and evacuation.