Washington – On Tuesday afternoon, the Supreme Court declined to stop one Texas law banning abortions already at six weeks of pregnancy, allowing the country’s most restrictive measure to remain in place.
The court ruled between 5 and 4 against the provision of relief to abortion providers, who on Monday asked the Supreme Court to suspend the law, which bans most abortions in the state. Chief Justice John Roberts and the three Liberal judges disagreed.
The high court did not act until the law went into effect Wednesday earlier, and Texas abortion providers informed women they would no longer offer the procedure after six weeks of pregnant in compliance with the law. Then, almost 24 hours later, the high court rejected the abortion rights advocates ’request to block the law.
In their view, the majority acknowledged that abortion providers “have raised serious questions about the constitutionality of the Texas law in question,” but said their petition to the court presents “complex and new” procedural issues that they were prevented from fulfilling their charge.
Although the high court refused to stop the law while the legal struggle continues, the majority said its decision “is not based on any conclusion about the constitutionality of Texas law and does not in any way limit others procedurally appropriate challenges to Texas law, including in Texas State Courts. “
The Supreme Court’s decision is a significant victory for anti-abortion advocates, who are seeking a 6-3 Conservative majority in the high court – with three judges appointed by former President Trump – to withdraw Roe against Wade, the 1973 decisive decision of the Supreme Court establishing a woman’s right to abortion. The court is set to hear a case this fall involving a 15-week Mississippi abortion ban, and a decision confirming the move could pave the way for more restrictive abortion laws.
In a scathing dissent, Judge Sonia Sotomayor called the court’s ordering “impressive” and said the law is an “impressive act of defiance of the Constitution, the precedents of this court and women’s rights.” seeking abortions throughout Texas “.
“Filed with a petition for a flagrantly unconstitutional law designed to ban women from exercising their constitutional rights and evade judicial scrutiny, most judges have chosen to bury their heads in the sand,” she wrote. .
He Texas law it is the most restrictive abortion measure in the country, as it prohibits the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy, which is before many women know they are pregnant. The coalition of abortion clinics and supporters of abortion rights that called for the intervention of the Supreme Court argued that it challenged the precedents of the high court, according to which states cannot ban abortions before the viability of abortion. fetus, which usually occurs around 24 weeks.
On Tuesday in the last hours before the law went into effect, Whole Woman’s Health, which operates four clinics in Texas and is a plaintiff in the case, reported having full waiting rooms for patients seeking an abortion. But as of Wednesday, clinics would only provide the procedures if ultrasounds show no cardiac activity in accordance with the law, Amy Hagstrom Miller, CEO of Whole Woman’s Health, told reporters.
In their court application, abortion rights groups estimate that at least 85% of women who have abortions in Texas are pregnant for at least six weeks. They warned that the law bans almost all abortions in the state and will lead to the closure of many abortion clinics.
“Patients who can pool resources will be forced to try to leave the state to get an abortion and many will be delayed until later in pregnancy,” they argued. “The rest of the jeans that need an abortion will be forced to get pregnant against their will or to try to end the pregnancies without medical supervision.”
The law, abortion providers wrote, “would immediately and irreparably deprive access to abortion in Texas,” if allowed to remain in force. It does not provide an exception for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest.
Texas has joined 12 other states with laws banning abortion in the early stages of pregnancy, known as “heartbeat bills,” because they are trying to ban procedures after a fetal heartbeat is first detected. . Federal judges have prevented these other state laws from coming into force.
But Texas law differs from the others by its scheme of application: by measure, private citizens are allowed to file civil lawsuits in state courts against abortion providers or anyone who helps women get an abortion, including a person who takes a woman to a clinic. or provides financial assistance.
If a lawsuit is successful, the plaintiff is entitled to at least $ 10,000 by the offender.
Sotomayor attacked the scheme drawn up by the state legislature, writing that “it has replaced the citizens of the state as bounty hunters, offering them cash prizes to civilly prosecute the medical procedures of its neighbors.”
In response to the request to block the law, Texas officials argued that the allegations made by abortion providers and advocacy groups were “hyperbolic” and said they “have not shown that they are personally harmed.” by a bill that can never be enforced against them by anyone, let alone by government defendants. “
“If any party faces irreparable injury in this application, it is the respondents, along with the state they serve and their people,” they said in a file in the Supreme Court.
Proponents of abortion called for Supreme Court intervention after a federal court of appeals canceled a district court hearing scheduled for Monday. The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also denied his request to expedite proceedings or stop law enforcement pending the appeal.
In their next term, which begins in October, judges will hear one great legal battle by a Mississippi law banning abortions after 15 weeks. Republican-led states, including Texas, are urging the court to overturn Roe.