A Texas doctor is without his medical license for violating a part of the state’s new abortion law.
The Texas Medical Board temporarily suspended the license on Feb. 13 of Dr. Theodore Herring, Jr. He performed almost 270 abortions between last November and earlier February without having the required hospital admitting privileges.
It’s the first time that a Texas doctor has faced license suspension since most of the state’s abortion law's provisions went into effect in October. The law requires abortion doctors to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the clinic.
Earlier last October in Austin, U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel struck down that provision, ruling it unconstitutional. But the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily put the provision back into effect on Oct. 31. Since then, a panel of judges at the appellate court in New Orleans heard arguments on the constitutionality of the law in early January. Its decision is pending.
