Pro-Choice Groups Ask Supreme Court For Emergency Halt To Texas Abortion Ban This Week - Forbes

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Topline

Pro-abortion rights advocacy groups asked the U.S. Supreme Court Monday to block a Texas law that severely restricts abortion before it can go into effect later this week, or allow a lower court’s consideration of the case to move forward in time for that court to potentially stop the law from taking effect.

Key Facts

Advocacy groups including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Planned Parenthood and Center for Reproductive Rights filed an emergency request with Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito asking the high court to take action against Texas’ Senate Bill 8 (SB 8), which would prohibit abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected—typically around six weeks into a pregnancy.

The groups argue the law, which is set to go into effect on Wednesday, is a “flagrant defiance of [the Supreme Court’s] clearly established constitutional precedent,” as the court previously legalized abortions that take place before the fetus is viable with its ruling in Roe v. Wade.

The lawsuit against the Texas law had been proceeding in lower court, but a conservative-leaning appeals court in Texas effectively halted the case from moving forward in district court over the weekend without explanation, including by canceling a hearing that was supposed to take place Monday and ordering an “indefinite administrative stay” of all the district court proceedings.

The appeals court’s actions “will prevent the district court from ruling on [the plaintiffs’] request … in a meaningful timeframe,” the advocacy groups argued to the Supreme Court, and will ensure the law goes into effect this week as scheduled if the Supreme Court doesn’t act.

The pro-abortion rights plaintiffs are asking the Supreme Court to issue an injunction that would block the law while their lawsuit against it moves forward, or to provide other relief that would at least ensure the lower district court can rule on the case before SB 8 is due to take effect, such as by vacating the appeals court’s order.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office has not yet responded to a request for comment.

Big Number

85%. That’s the approximate percentage of abortions in Texas that would likely be blocked should SB 8 be allowed to take effect, the plaintiffs allege in their request to the Supreme Court.

Crucial Quote

“If permitted to take effect, S.B. 8 would immediately and catastrophically reduce abortion access in Texas,” the plaintiffs wrote to the Supreme Court, and will likely “[force] many abortion clinics ultimately to close.” “Patients who can scrape together resources will be forced to attempt to leave the state to obtain an abortion, and many will be delayed until later in pregnancy,” the plaintiffs wrote. “The remaining Texans who need an abortion will be forced to remain pregnant against their will or to attempt to end their pregnancies without medical supervision.”

Chief Critic

Texas Right to Life Legislative Director John Seago previously said in a statement to Forbes the anti-abortion organization has “the utmost confidence in the innovative legal strategy and carefully drafted nature of SB 8” in light off the legal challenge against it, and said they “fully believe” the law “will ultimately be upheld and save countless preborn lives.”

Key Background

The Texas law is one of numerous abortion restrictions Republican legislators have enacted across the country, with abortion advocacy group the Guttmacher Institute finding 90 state-level abortion restrictions had already been enacted in 2021 as of July 1. While most restrictive abortion laws have been struck down in court for overtly violating the Supreme Court’s precedent in Roe v. Wade, SB 8 was crafted to evade judicial scrutiny by leaving it up to Texas citizens to enforce the law instead of state officials. The law empowers anyone except government officials to bring civil lawsuits against abortion providers or anyone who “aids or abets” an abortion—and says they can receive $10,000 in damages if successful—which the advocacy groups argued in their lawsuit would “force abortion providers and others who are sued to spend massive amounts of time and money to defend themselves in lawsuits across the state in which the deck is heavily stacked against them.”

Tangent

The SB 8 lawsuit comes as the Supreme Court already prepares to weigh in on abortion when it considers a challenge to Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban next term. The 6-3 conservative-leaning court could use that ruling as an opportunity to significantly weaken Roe v. Wade or overturn it entirely, abortion rights advocates fear, and 12 Republican-led states have asked the court to overturn their precedent through the case so that states can issue their own abortion laws. Texas lawmakers passed legislation in May that would make abortion a felony in the event Roe v. Wade is overturned.