US | Mon Jan 4, 2016 7:58pm EST

Obama administration asks top court to reject Texas abortion law

WASHINGTON | BY JOAN BISKUPIC

The Obama administration on Monday urged the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down a Texas abortion law that has shuttered nearly half the clinics in the state, saying the Republican-backed regulations would harm rather than protect women's health.

Intervening in the Supreme Court's first abortion case since 2007, the administration said the new Texas rules for clinics and physicians who perform abortions are far more restrictive than other regulations upheld by the justices over the years.

If allowed to take full effect, U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli wrote, the law would close many more of the state’s clinics and force hundreds of thousands of Texas women to travel great distances if they seek to terminate pregnancies.

"Those requirements are unnecessary to protect - indeed, would harm - women’s health, and they would result in closure of three quarters of the abortion clinics in the state," Verrilli wrote.

The administration’s "friend of the court" brief siding with the clinics challenging the law comes in one of the most politically charged disputes this presidential election year.

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