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 The justices took up requests by President Joe Biden's
administration and abortion providers to immediately review their
challenges to the law. The court, which on Sept. 1 allowed the law
to go into effect, declined to act on the Justice Department's
request to immediately block enforcement of the measure.
The court will consider whether the law's unusual
private-enforcement structure prevents federal courts from
intervening to strike it down and whether the federal government is
even allowed to sue the state to try to block it.
The measure bans abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy, a
point when many women do not yet realize they are pregnant. It makes
an exception for a documented medical emergency but not for cases of
rape or incest.
Liberal Justice Sotomayor dissented from the court's deferral of a
decision on whether to block enforcement of the law while the
litigation continues. Sotomayor said the law's novel design has
suspended nearly all abortions in Texas, the second most populous
U.S. state, with about 29 million people.
"The state's gambit has worked. The impact is catastrophic,"
Sotomayor wrote.
The Texas dispute is the second major abortion case that the court,
which has a 6-3 conservative majority, has scheduled for the coming
months, with arguments set for Dec. 1 over the legality of a
restrictive Mississippi abortion law.
The Texas and Mississippi measures are among a series of
Republican-backed laws passed at the state level limiting abortion
rights - coming at a time when abortion opponents are hoping that
the Supreme Court will overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade that
legalized the procedure nationwide.
Mississippi has asked the justices to overturn Roe v. Wade, and the
Texas attorney general on Thursday signaled that he also would like
to see that ruling fall.
Lower courts already have blocked Mississippi's law banning
abortions starting at 15 weeks of pregnancy.
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 has helped shield
the law from being immediately blocked as it made it more difficult
to directly sue the state.
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 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.
Nancy Northup, president of the Center for
Reproductive Rights, which is representing the
abortion providers, said Friday's decision to
hear their case "brings us one step closer to
the restoration of Texans' constitutional rights
and an end to the havoc and heartache of this
ban."
Alexis McGill Johnson, president of healthcare
and abortion provider Planned Parenthood, said
it is "devastating" that the justices did not
immediately block a law that already has had a
"catastrophic impact" after being in effect
nearly two months.
"Patients who have the means have fled the
state, traveling hundreds of miles to access
basic care, and those without means have been
forced to carry pregnancies against their will,"
she added.
Kimberlyn Schwartz, a spokesperson for the Texas
Right to Life anti-abortion group, praised the
court's action, saying it "will continue to save
an estimated 100 babies per day, and because the
justices will actually discuss whether these
lawsuits are valid in the first place."
The Supreme Court only rarely decides to hear
cases before lower courts have ruled, indicating
that the justices have deemed the Texas matter
of high public importance and requiring
immediate review.
The Justice Department filed its lawsuit in
September challenging the Texas law, arguing
that it is unconstitutional and explicitly
designed to evade judicial review.
Rulings in Texas and Mississippi cases are due
by the end of next June, but could come sooner.
 (Reporting by Andrew Chung in New York; Editing
by Will Dunham)
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