U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson on Monday ruled an Alabama law unconstitutional which threatened to close three of the state's five abortion clinics. The measure requires doctors who perform abortions to have privileges to admit patients to a nearby hospital. Ruling that the law imposed an undue burden on a woman's ability to choose an abortion the judge wrote, "The court is convinced that, if this requirement would not ... constitute an impermissible undue burden, then almost no regulation, short of those imposing an outright prohibition on abortion, would."
