AUSTIN–The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that hospital-like structural requirements for Texas abortion clinics can go into effect, which will cause all but seven or eight clinics to shutter. 
 
 This was the second challenge to the state’s 2013 law that also banned abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy, mandated physicians to have hospital admitting privileges and tightened regulations on abortion-inducing drugs. 
 
 The structural requirements include specific room and doorway sizes, air sterilization systems, backup generators and blood supplies on hand. Abortion providers say the requirements are unnecessary and won’t add to the safety of the procedure. 
 
 In June of 2013, before the law passed, there were 40 abortion clinics in Texas. Now there are 17, only seven of which meet the building standards upheld by the court. Each of the remaining clinics are within the Austin, Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth and San Antonio metropolitan areas. 
 
 The court made an exception for Whole Woman’s Health in McAllen, which won’t be required to meet all of the building requirements or gain admitting privileges for one doctor. 
 
 The 5th Circuit earlier upheld the provisions requiring doctors at abortion clinics to obtain admitting privileges at nearby hospitals and the regulations that mandate where and when a woman can take abortion-causing pills. At the time, the court said the provision did not impose an “undue burden” on women because they were still within driving distance of clinics. 
 
 “Not since before Roe v. Wade has a law or court decision had the potential to devastate access to reproductive health care on such a sweeping scale,” said Nancy Northup, CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which sued the state on behalf of several abortion clinics, in an emailed statement Tuesday. ||||| WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday blocked key parts of a 2013 law in Texas that had closed all but eight facilities providing abortions in America's second most-populous state. 
 
 In an unsigned order, the justices sided with abortion rights advocates and health care providers in suspending an Oct. 2 ruling by a panel of the New Orleans-based U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals that Texas could immediately apply a rule making abortion clinics statewide spend millions of dollars on hospital-level upgrades. 
 
 The court also put on hold a separate provision of the law only as it applies to clinics in McAllen and El Paso that requires doctors at the facilities to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals. The admitting privileges remains in effect elsewhere in Texas. 
 
 Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas said they would have ruled against the clinics in all respects. 
 
 The 5th Circuit is still considering the overall constitutionality of the sweeping measure overwhelmingly passed by the GOP-controlled Texas Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Rick Perry last year. 
 
 But even as it weighs the merits of the law, the appeals court said that it can be enforced in the meantime — opening the door for the emergency appeal to the Supreme Court. 
 
 The 5th Circuit decision had blocked an August ruling by Austin-based U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel, who had found that requiring hospital-style upgrades was less about safety than making access to abortion difficult. Yeakel's ruling temporarily suspended the upgrade rules before they could go into effect Sept. 1 — and the order from the Supreme Court means they are on hold again. 
 
 Allowing the rules on hospital-level upgrades to be enforced — including mandatory operating rooms and air filtration systems — shuttered more than a dozen clinics across Texas. 
 
 Until the nation's highest court intervened, only abortion facilities in the Houston, Austin, San Antonio and the Dallas-Fort Worth areas remained open. And none was left along the Texas-Mexico border or outside any of the state's largest urban areas. 
 
 Some other clinics, meanwhile, had closed even earlier amid enforcement of the rule on admitting privileges at nearby hospitals. That portion has already been upheld twice by the appeals court. 
 
 The fight over the Texas law is the latest over tough new abortion restrictions that have been enacted across the country. The office of Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, a Republican who is the favorite in next month's governor's race, is leading the defense of the law. 
 
 Critics call the measure a backdoor effort to outlaw abortions. 
 
 Attorneys for the state have denied that Texas women would be burdened by fewer abortion facilities, saying nearly 9 in 10 would still live within 150 miles of a provider. The law's opponents, however, note that still leaves nearly a million Texas women embarking on drives longer than three hours to get an abortion. 
 
 Democrat Wendy Davis launched her campaign for governor behind the celebrity she achieved through a nearly 13-hour filibuster last summer that temporarily blocked the law in the state Senate. 
 
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 Associated Press writer Will Weissert contributed to this report from Austin, Texas.
– An appellate court ruling today means that women in rural Texas may have a long drive on their hands if they plan to get an abortion. The 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the state's new rules, which essentially require clinics to have hospital-level building codes, reports the Dallas Morning News. (Think room and doorway sizes, air-sterilization systems, etc.) Prior to today's ruling, the state had 17 abortion clinics—down from 40 in 2013—but only seven of them currently meet the requirements. An eighth, in McAllen near the Mexican border, was granted limited exemptions. Barring a move by the Supreme Court, the state can begin enforcing the new rules in about three weeks, reports AP. Except for McAllen, those that would remain open are in major cities. A woman in El Paso would have to make a 1,300-mile round trip to San Antonio or cross the border into Mexico, and the AP notes the court found the latter option OK. "Although the nearest abortion facility in Texas is 550 miles away from El Paso, there is evidence that women in El Paso can travel the short distance to Santa Teresa (in Mexico) to obtain an abortion and, indeed, the evidence is that many did just that," the court wrote.