|
 Abortion rights in the United States are hanging in the balance as
the nine justices take up the dispute over the Texas law barring
abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy before hearing
arguments on Dec. 1
https://www.reuters.com/article/
legal-us-usa-court-abortion-instant/
u-s-supreme-court-takes-up-case-
that-could-limit-abortion-rights-
idUSKCN2CY1P9 over the legality of a Mississippi measure prohibiting
the procedure after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
The Texas dispute reached the Supreme Court with unusual speed. The
justices agreed to take up
https://www.reuters.com/world
/us/us-supreme-court-hear-challenge-texas-abortion-ban-2021-10-22
the matter on Oct. 22, bypassing lower courts that are considering
the challenges. The Supreme Court on a 5-4 vote on Sept. 1 declined
to halt the law
https://www.reuters.com/business/
healthcare-pharmaceuticals/texas-six-week-abortion-ban-takes-effect-2021-09-01.
The challenges will determine whether federal courts can hear
lawsuits aimed at striking down the Texas law and whether the U.S.
government even can sue to try to block it. If the justices keep
federal courts out of the process by virtue of the law's unique
design, it could be replicated in other states and curtail abortion
access in other parts of the country.
The Texas and Mississippi laws are among a series of
Republican-backed abortion restrictions pursued at the state level
in recent years. Lower courts blocked the Mississippi law.
Abortion opponents hope the Supreme Court, with its 6-3 conservative
majority, will roll back abortion rights or even overturn its 1973
Roe v. Wade decision that recognized a woman's constitutional right
to terminate a pregnancy and legalized the procedure nationwide.
The Supreme Court will hear separate oral arguments lasting hours in
the two challenges to the Texas law.
The law bans abortion at a point in time when many women do not yet
realize they are pregnant. There is an exception for a documented
medical emergency but not for pregnancies resulting from incest or
rape.
[to top of second column] |
 The Texas measure takes
enforcement out of the hands of state officials,
instead enabling private citizens to sue anyone
who performs or assists a woman in getting an
abortion after cardiac activity is detected in
the embryo. That feature made it
more difficult to directly sue the state, helping shield the law
from being immediately blocked. Individual citizens can be awarded a
minimum of $10,000 for bringing successful lawsuits under the law.
Critics have said this provision lets people act as anti-abortion
bounty hunters, a characterization its proponents reject.
The abortion providers and Biden's administration have called the
law unconstitutional and explicitly designed to evade judicial
review.
The law's design has deterred most abortions in Texas, which is the
second most populous U.S. state, behind only California, with about
29 million people.
The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in the
abortion providers case refused to block the law and indicated that
federal courts lack jurisdiction to intervene. After a federal judge
in the Biden administration's challenge blocked the law on Oct. 6,
the 5th Circuit quickly reinstated it.
Mississippi has asked the justices to overturn Roe v. Wade
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/
mississippi-asks-us-supreme-
court-overturn-abortion-rights-landmark-2021-07-22. The Texas
attorney general has signaled he also would like to see that ruling
overturned
https://www.reuters.com/world/
us/texas-urges-us-supreme-court-maintain-states-abortion-ban-2021-10-21.
Before that landmark ruling, many states outlawed abortion.
(Reporting by Andrew Chung and Lawrence Hurley in Washington;
Editing by Will Dunham)
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