Why many abortion clinics in Texas may stay open despite new law

Most of the Texas clinics that abortion rights advocates predict will close because of a new law requiring tighter health and safety standards likely will remain open - at least if history is any guide.

Governor Rick Perry signed the new legislation on Thursday, capping a whirlwind month in which Texas became the center of a national campaign by anti-abortion activists to restrict when, by whom and where the procedure can be performed.

Included in the new Texas law are requirements that abortion clinics meet hospital-style health standards, ranging from installation of hands-free sinks to upgrades to ventilation systems. Supporters call the rules crucial safety standards.

The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists opposed them, saying that they are "unnecessary and unsupported by scientific evidence."

The new laws in Texas and elsewhere have alarmed abortion rights advocates, who see them as an attempt to thwart the right to abortion granted by the Supreme Court in 1973.

In Texas, Planned Parenthood announced on Thursday that it was closing one of its 13 abortion clinics that provide abortions, citing the new law. The nation's largest abortion provider said the rules could force all but a handful of the 42 abortion facilities in Texas to close down.

But similar warnings in other states have not come to pass.

Twenty-six states have laws that require abortion clinics to meet varying levels of hospital standards, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights. Pennsylvania, Virginia and Missouri passed strict health and safety rules similar to Texas, it said.

In those three states, however, most clinics were able to stay open after the laws passed, some by reallocating dollars to comply with building upgrades, according to abortion providers and state health department officials interviewed by Reuters.

"It seems like an exaggeration from the other side that access is going to be cut off," said Mallory Quigley, spokeswoman for the anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony list.

Elizabeth Nash, state issues manager for the Guttmacher Institute, which favors abortion rights but does research cited by both sides, said the new law will have an impact in Texas but maybe less than the worst fears.

"Clinics will close," she said. "But I can't say we are going to go down to six."

Of the 24 clinics in Pennsylvania prior to a tough new law in 2011, one closed voluntarily, according to the state health department. The state closed two others for serious violations including a freezer lined with frozen blood, and stained surgical instruments in dirty drawers, according to reports by state inspectors.

Two others were consolidated into a third clinic but maintained the same level of service to women as before, said Dr. W. Allen Hogge, chair of the Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences Department at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.