Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry defended a law he signed while still in office that places what critics say are unnecessary restrictions on abortion clinics in the state.
"This is really about the issue of women's health," Perry, a current GOP presidential candidate, said Wednesday on Fox News Channel's
"The Kelly File."
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans on Tuesday
upheld the law, saying the plaintiffs had not proved their case the real purpose of the law was to restrict abortion.
The law restricts abortion to the first 20 weeks of pregnancy, requires clinics to meet the standards of ambulatory surgical clinics and requires the physician had to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles.
The law would shutter all but seven on Texas' 17 abortion clinics.
"The idea that you don't want a facility to have the same standards as an ambulatory surgical center, I think really goes counter to women's health," Perry said. "If something does go wrong at one of the facilities, I think you would agree that you want to have pretty high standards in place to take care of them if something did, in fact, go wrong."
Perry said he opposes abortion, and when asked by host Megyn Kelly if he favors exemptions for rape, incest or the life of the mother answered, "I'm pro-life on all of those."
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