The judge’s order means the law will remain in effect for now.
Just after the judge’s transfer, the department asked him to move more aggressively and hold a hearing on Sept. 20 to decide whether the law should be blocked even temporarily.
The department and critics of the law are desperate to stop it, saying even waiting until Oct. 1 will endanger too many women.
Even though the Justice Department had asked the judge to immediately freeze the law, the government could still impose itself after a full hearing. The court order states that Judge Robert Pitman of the Western District of Texas wants the opportunity to issue a formal ruling, pending further litigation, before Texas can appeal to the Conservative Court of Appeals. New Orleans-based federal agencies.
The new case puts the court in an unusual position. Try to proceed with caution, aware that everything you do will be appealed to this court. But the Justice Department suggests the district court judge moves with great caution.
If Pitman finally issues a preliminary measure, some clinics could resume abortions currently covered by the law. But others may refuse to do so until appeals to the higher courts have followed their course. This is because, by law, a clinic could still be liable if it performed an abortion prohibited by law while the court order was in effect, if that same order was subsequently reversed by a higher court.
In his brief order, Pitman noted that Texas “wanted to be heard” before the court resolved the issue, so he set an expedited reporting schedule. He requested that Texas respond before Sept. 29 and that the DOJ be able to respond before Oct. 1.
“Judge Pitman appears to be following the book here,” said Steve Vladeck, a CNN legal analyst and professor at the University of Texas Law School.
“The appellate court has already cut its effort to hold a similar hearing on the challenge to SB8 filed by Texas abortion providers,” Vladeck said. “By not issuing a temporary restraining order here, it effectively prevents Texas from asking the Court of Appeals to also block that hearing before it happens.”
In court documents filed Tuesday night, the Justice Department argued that the law “has severely and irreparably affected the ability of women to exercise their constitutional right to abortion statewide.”
The Justice Department says Texas clinics have stopped aborting after six weeks, a medical emergency and a Planned Parenthood clinic that had provided 205 abortions the week before the law went into effect have been absent she only provided 52 abortions the following week.
A 5-4 Supreme Court allowed Texas law to remain in effect earlier this month in an independent judicial challenge. By law, abortion is prohibited when a fetal heartbeat is detected, which is often before a woman knows she is pregnant. There are no exceptions to rape or incest, although there is an exemption for “medical emergencies.”
In passing the law, the Texas legislature adopted a new legal strategy that blocked Texas officials from enforcing the law and instead allowed private citizens (anywhere in the country) to file a civil lawsuit against anyone who helps a pregnant woman seeking an abortion in violation of the law.
According to the Justice Department, clinics in neighboring states “receive panic calls from Texas patients and continue to experience large increases in minor patients, survivors of sexual assault, patients with maternally or fetally diagnosed patients, and patients with later gestational ages.” .
Women with the ability to travel, according to the document, “are forced to travel hundreds – and sometimes thousands – of miles to get an abortion in distressing circumstances amid a wave of COVID,” the DOJ argued in papers judicial.
This story has been updated with additional news Wednesday.