Texas Supreme Court Shuts Down Final Challenge to Abortion Law - The New York Times - 0 views
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The Texas Supreme Court on Friday effectively shut down a federal challenge to the state’s novel and controversial ban on abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy, closing off what abortion rights advocates said was their last, narrow path to blocking the new law.
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The Texas law, which several states are attempting to copy, puts enforcement in the hands of civilians. It offers the prospect of $10,000 rewards for successful lawsuits against anyone — from an Uber driver to a doctor — who “aids or abets” a woman who gets an abortion once fetal cardiac activity can be detected.
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It is the most restrictive abortion law in the nation, and flies in the face of the Supreme Court’s landmark 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, which prohibits states from banning the procedure before a fetus is viable outside the womb, which is currently about 23 weeks of pregnancy.
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On Friday, the justices of the Texas Supreme Court, all Republicans, said that those officials did not, in fact, have any power to enforce the law, “either directly or indirectly,” and so could not be sued.
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“This measure, which has saved thousands of unborn babies, remains fully in effect, and the pro-abortion plaintiffs’ lawsuit against the state is essentially finished,” he wrote on Twitter.
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The law allows no exceptions for abortion even in the case of women who have been raped or are victims of incest. It has thrown Texas abortion providers into crisis, and similar legislation is pending around the country.
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“If conservative states want to do things that may not look constitutional even to this Supreme Court, they can use a bounty system to achieve that,” Professor Ziegler said. “The message sent by the Texas litigation was that if you have concerns that you might lose a constitutional challenge, that shouldn’t hold you back. Because you can use this road map to keep the case out of federal court entirely.”
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“We’ve known that this lawsuit all along was just invalid and should have been dismissed, and now the fact that we’re on that trajectory now is encouraging,” Ms. Schwartz said, adding that the movement “is not going to let our foot off the gas yet.”
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Amy Hagstrom Miller, the chief executive of Whole Woman’s Health, the clinic that sued to stop S.B. 8, said “the courts have failed us.”
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“This ban does not change the need for abortion in Texas, it just blocks people from accessing the care they need,” she said. “The situation is becoming increasingly dire,”
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Many women have traveled to Oklahoma for the procedure, but this week the State Senate passed its own six-week ban modeled on the Texas law. The Idaho Senate passed a similar law last week. Lawmakers in other states have proposed similar bans, but have held off in hopes that the Supreme Court decision, expected in June, will allow them to ban abortion entirely.