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 The U.S. Justice Department will ask the Supreme Court, which has a
6-3 conservative majority, to reverse the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals' decision to lift a judge's order blocking the law, while
litigation over the dispute continues, a spokesman said.
The Texas measure, which bans abortion after about six weeks of
pregnancy, took effect on Sept. 1. It makes an exception for a
documented medical emergency but not for cases of rape or incest.
The law is unusual in that it gives private citizens the power to
enforce it by enabling them to sue anyone who performs or assists a
woman in getting an abortion after cardiac activity is detected in
the embryo. That feature has helped shield the law from being
immediately blocked as it made it more difficult to directly sue the
state.
Critics of the law have said this provision - which provides
monetary awards for those whose lawsuits are successful - lets
people act as anti-abortion bounty hunters.
The Justice Department sued Texas over the abortion law last month,
arguing that the law impedes women from exercising their
constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy as recognized in the
Supreme Court's landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized
abortion nationwide. The department also argued that the law
improperly interferes with the operations of the federal government
to provide abortion-related services.
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 In his ruling blocking the law
on Oct. 6, U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman in
Austin, Texas, found that the law was likely
unconstitutional and designed to avoid judicial
scrutiny. The judge said he would "not sanction
one more day of this offensive deprivation of
such an important right."
The Supreme Court previously allowed the law to
be enforced in a separate challenge to the ban
brought by abortion providers. In that 5-4
decision on Sept. 1, conservative Chief Justice
John Roberts expressed skepticism about how the
law is enforced.
The Texas measure prohibits abortion at a point
when many women do not even realize they are
pregnant. Under the law, individual citizens can
be awarded a minimum of $10,000 for bringing
successful lawsuits against those who perform or
help others obtain an abortion that violates the
ban.
The Supreme Court already is set to consider a
major abortion case on Dec. 1 in a dispute
centering on Mississippi's 15-week abortion ban
in which that state has asked the justices to
overturn Roe v. Wade. A ruling is due by the end
of June 2022.
 (Reporting by Andrew Chung and Brendan O'Brien;
Additional reporting by Sarah Lynch; Editing by
Daniel Wallis and Jonathan Oatis)
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