WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is taking up challenges to a Texas law that has virtually ended abortion in the nation’s second-largest state after six weeks of pregnancy.
The justices are hearing arguments Monday in two cases over whether abortion providers or the Justice Department can mount federal court challenges to the law, which has an unusual enforcement scheme its defenders argue shields it from federal court review.
In neither case is the right to an abortion directly at issue, but the motivation for lawsuits filed by abortion providers and the Justice Department is that the Texas law conflicts with landmark Supreme Court rulings that prevent a state from banning abortion early in pregnancy.
The justices will hear a separate challenge to the decisions in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey in a case over Mississippi’s ban on abortion after 15 weeks. Those arguments are set for Dec. 1.
The Texas law has been in effect since September, except for a 48-hour period in early October when it was blocked by a lower court.
The high court jumped into the Texas cases less than two weeks ago, moving at extraordinary speed, but only after rejecting a plea to block the law by a 5-4 vote in early September.
Five conservative justices, including three who were appointed by President Donald Trump, were in the majority. Chief Justice John Roberts joined the court’s three liberal justices in dissent.
The court offered no explanation for its decision to hear the cases so quickly.
The Texas ban, signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott in May, prohibits abortion after cardiac activity is detected in a fetus, usually around six weeks and before some women know they are pregnant.
The law makes exceptions for medical emergencies but not for rape or incest.
At least 12 other states have enacted bans early in pregnancy, but all have been blocked from going into effect.
But rather than have state officials enforce it, the Texas law deputizes private citizens to sue anyone who performs or aids and abets an abortion. If they’re successful, they are entitled to at least $10,000. Women who obtain abortions can’t be sued under the law.
The structure of the law threatens abortion providers with huge financial penalties if they violate it. Clinics throughout the state have stopped performing abortions once cardiac activity is found.
The result, both the providers and the Biden administration said, is that women who are financially able have traveled to other states and those without the means must either continue their pregnancies against their will or find other, potentially dangerous ways to end them.
The state and Jonathan Mitchell, an architect of the law, say in their briefs that the providers and the Justice Department lack the right to go into federal court and can’t sue state judges and clerks who are not responsible for enforcing the abortion ban. They also contend that there is no effective way of blocking the law, in part because federal court can’t force state judges to abstain from hearing the lawsuits the law authorizes.
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The Tenth Amendment was part of the Bill of Rights that was added to the Constitution on December 15, 1791.
This amendment states that any power not specifically given to the federal government by the Constitution belongs to the States and the people.
The Federal government was not given the power to kill babies by the U.S. Constitution.
TRY Telling that to them.. They think ANYTHING to do with our kids, is THEIR RIGHT to decide.
If it had been as popular as the Democrats say it is there would have no trouble having those laws enacted by the various states where the laws were restrictive but it wasn’t and they couldn’t. So they went to the Court which issued a questionable ruling which is still the cause of debate to this day. The ruling merely stated it was a matter of privacy (privilege) between a woman and her doctor. There was no blanket endorsement not was there a prohibition against state restrictions.
The focus was on EXCESSIVE government regulation not an absence of any!
Joe gets his 10% in laundered money in his business deals the same as the Democrat Party gets theirs in laundered money earned in the sale of fetal body parts from “Planned Parenthood” laundered in the form of party campaign donations. WE THE PEOPLE and our very innocence are dying in their laundries every bit the same as Gabby Petito died in hers, in the same pathology of the “Privileged” self-gods and their demonic doctors who dine on power, rebellion and the control of the life and death of others. Liberal American consumers making lethal war on the American CREATORS, and Oh how they DO love to call us ALL, American CONSUMERS, now of American life force itself.
Leftists: ‘But first, doc, do no harm, except we worship the golden calf of killing inconvenient babies! We demand to be able to worship the calf and murder babies! Why would you stop us?’
Hey leftists: ever heard of abstinence, birth control and adoption? Oh that’s right, it’s just a lump of cells.
May God have mercy and open their eyes
These demons, DESERVE NO MERCY from god, OR US!
A few years back I read a quote from a British lawmaker who wanted life to begin when the infant was able to care for itself. Like cook, wash, dress, etc. Up to that point the parent could abort them. Now I realize that is an extreme beyond insanity, but he was serous. So at what point do you have to recognize a living human being exists. At what point does it no longer become “my body” and become “our bodies”, the child and mother. At what point does the mother acquire the right to commit infanticide? At what point does it cease to just be “my body” and become “our bodies”, because when that little child has a beating heart, it darn well isn’t just a random collection of cells. It should also not be the point where the body parts become marketable.