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 The administration asked the Supreme Court to quickly reverse a
decision this month by the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court
of Appeals to lift a judge's order blocking the law while litigation
over the statute's legality continues. The justices in a 5-4 Sept. 1
decision let the law take effect in a separate challenge brought by
abortion providers in the state.
The Texas measure, one of a series of restrictive abortion laws
passed at the state level in recent years, bans the procedure after
about six weeks of pregnancy, a point when many women do not yet
realize they are pregnant.
The Justice Department, which filed suit last month in a bid to stop
the law, told the Supreme Court in a filing that the 5th Circuit's
action enables the ongoing violation by the state of Texas "of this
court's precedents and its citizens' constitutional rights."
"Texas's insistence that no party can bring a suit challenging S.B.
8 amounts to an assertion that the federal courts are powerless to
halt the state's ongoing nullification of federal law. That
proposition is as breathtaking as it is dangerous," the Justice
Department added, using the formal name of the Texas law.
The filing also said that the Supreme Court could decide to take up
and hear arguments in the case even before lower courts have issued
their own final rulings "given the importance and urgency of the
issues" involved.
The Supreme Court signaled that it will consider resolving the
dispute quickly. In addition to asking Texas officials for a
response to the Justice Department's request by midday on Thursday,
the justices also fast-tracked their consideration of whether to
immediately take up a separate
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/
abortion-providers-ask-us-supreme-court-intervene-challenge-texas-law-2021-09-23
challenge to the law by abortion providers in the state.
The Texas measure makes an exception for a documented medical
emergency but not for cases of rape or incest. It also 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 fetus. That feature has helped shield
the law from being immediately blocked by making it more difficult
to directly sue the state.
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 Under the law, individual
citizens can be awarded a minimum of $10,000 for
bringing successful lawsuits. Critics have said
this provision lets people act as anti-abortion
bounty hunters, a characterization its
proponents reject. The Biden
administration's lawsuit argued 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. It also argued that the law
improperly interferes with the operations of the federal government
to provide abortion-related services.
In his Oct. 6 ruling blocking the law, U.S. Judge Robert Pitman
found that the measure was likely unconstitutional and designed to
avoid judicial scrutiny. Pitman said he would "not sanction one more
day of this offensive deprivation of such an important right."
The Supreme Court has a 6-3 conservative majority. When the Supreme
Court allowed the law to take effect, conservative Chief Justice
John Roberts dissented along with the three liberal justices,
expressing skepticism about how the measure is enforced.
Roberts said he would have blocked the law's enforcement at that
point "so that the courts may consider whether a state can avoid
responsibility for its laws in such a manner."
The Supreme Court already is set to consider a major abortion case
on Dec. 1 in a dispute centering on Mississippi's law banning
abortions starting at 15 weeks of pregnancy, Mississippi has asked
the justices to overturn Roe v. Wade. A ruling in the Mississippi
case is due by the end of next June.
(Reporting by Andrew Chung in New York and Lawrence Hurley in
Washington; Editing by Will Dunham)
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