AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Abortions quickly resumed in some Texas clinics yesterday after a federal judge halted the most restrictive abortion law in the United States, but doctors across the state did not rush to resume normal operations with the court battle far from over.

The order by US District Judge Robert Pitman late Wednesday was meant to give Texas clinics cover to resume seeing most patients for the first time since early September, when the law known as Senate Bill 8 (SB 8) went into effect, banning abortions once cardiac activity is detected, usually around six weeks.

Amy Hagstrom Miller, president of Whole Woman’s Health, said her four Texas clinics called in some patients early Thursday who were on a list in case the law was blocked at some point. Other appointments were being scheduled for the days ahead, and phone lines were again busy, she said.

But the relief felt by Texas abortion providers was tempered by the possibility of an appeals court reinstating the law in the coming days. Some Texas physicians, meanwhile, were still declining to perform abortions, fearful they might be held liable despite the judge’s order.

“There’s actually hope from patients and from staff, and I think there’s a little desperation in that hope,” Hagstrom Miller said. “Folks know this opportunity could be short-lived.”

The law leaves enforcement solely in the hands of private citizens, who are entitled to collect $10,000 in damages if they bring successful lawsuits against abortion providers who violate the restrictions. Planned Parenthood, which had said it was hopeful the order would allow clinics to resume abortion services as soon as possible, did not immediately offer an update on its plans yesterday.

Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office quickly served notice of the state’s intent to appeal but had yet to do so up to press time.

“The sanctity of human life is, and will always be, a top priority for me,” Paxton tweeted.

Pitman’s order amounted to the first legal blow to Senate Bill 8, which had withstood a wave of earlier challenges. In the weeks since the restrictions took effect, Texas abortion providers said the impact had been “exactly what we feared”.

In a 113-page opinion, Pitman took Texas to task, saying Republican lawmakers had “contrived an unprecedented and transparent statutory scheme” by leaving enforcement solely in the hands of private citizens, who can collect damages if they bring successful lawsuits against abortion providers who violate the restrictions.

The law, signed by Republican Governor Greg Abbott in May, has the effect of banning abortions before some women even know they are pregnant.

“From the moment SB 8 went into effect, women have been unlawfully prevented from exercising control over their lives in ways that are protected by the Constitution,” wrote Pitman, who was appointed to the bench by former President Barack Obama.

“That other courts may find a way to avoid this conclusion is theirs to decide; this Court will not sanction one more day of this offensive deprivation of such an important right.”

The lawsuit was brought by the Biden administration, which has said the restrictions were enacted in defiance of the US Constitution. Attorney General Merrick Garland called the order “a victory for women in Texas and for the rule of law.”

The law had been in effect since September 1.

“For more than a month now, Texans have been deprived of abortion access because of an unconstitutional law that never should have gone into effect. The relief granted by the court today is overdue, and we are grateful that the Department of Justice moved quickly to seek it,” said Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

Texas Right to Life, the state’s largest anti-abortion group, said the order was not unexpected.

“This is ultimately the legacy of Roe v Wade, that you have activist judges bending over backwards, bending precedent, bending the law, in order to cater to the abortion industry,” said Kimberlyn Schwartz, a spokeswoman for the group. “These activist judges will create their conclusion first: that abortion is a so-called constitutional right and then work backwards from there.”

Abortion providers say their fears have become reality in the short time the law has been in effect. Planned Parenthood says the number of patients from Texas at its clinics in the state decreased by nearly 80 per cent in the two weeks after the law took effect.

Some providers have said Texas clinics are now in danger of closing while neighbouring states struggle to keep up with a surge of patients who must drive hundreds of miles for an abortion. Other women, they say, are being forced to carry pregnancies to term.

Other states, mostly in the South, have passed similar laws that ban abortion within the early weeks of pregnancy, all of which judges have blocked. A 1992 decision by the US Supreme Court prevented states from banning abortion before viability, the point at which a foetus can survive outside the womb, around 24 weeks of pregnancy.