últimas notícias

At the center of the legal debate over the law is the mechanism that essentially deputizes private citizens, rather than the state’s executive branch, to enforce the new restrictions by suing anyone who performs an abortion or “aids and abets” a procedure. Plaintiffs who have no connection to the patient or the clinic may sue and recover legal fees, as well as $10,000 if they win.

In its court filing, the Justice Department called this mechanism “an unprecedented scheme that seeks to deny women and providers the ability to challenge S.B. 8 in federal court.”

It said that in other cases where states had enacted laws that abridged reproductive rights to the extent that the Texas law does, courts had stopped those measures from taking effect.

Texas’ “attempt to shield a plainly unconstitutional law from review cannot stand,” the department said in its motion.

The Supreme Court did not rule on whether Senate Bill 8 was constitutional when it refused to block the law. The Justice Department has placed its constitutionality at the heart of the lawsuit, which could force the court to consider new factors and possibly come to a different decision if it hears the case.

Opponents and supporters of the Texas law recognize that it is an enormous shift in the nation’s battle over abortion, which has long rested on whether the Supreme Court will overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that granted women the constitutional right to the procedure.

The Texas law essentially allows a state to all but ban abortions before a legal test of that watershed case. If the law is not stopped by the courts, other Republican-led state legislatures could use it as a blueprint for their own restrictions.