Justice Gorsuch wrote that there were other ways to challenge the law beyond suing state officials in federal court, including by raising the unconstitutionality of the law as a defense in a state-court lawsuit brought under S.B. 8. He also noted that a state court judge had ruled in favor of abortion providers on Thursday.
That judge found that several procedural aspects of the law violated the state Constitution, including ones allowing people who had suffered no injury to sue and setting a minimum recovery of $10,000.
Abortion clinics in Texas welcomed the state-court ruling, but said that only a favorable decision from the Texas Supreme Court or the U.S. Supreme Court would allow them to start providing the procedure again without fear of crippling financial liability.
The decision in the Texas case came less than two weeks after the court heard a direct challenge to the right to abortion established in 1973 in Roe v. Wade, in a case about a Mississippi law that bans most abortions after 15 weeks. Roe prohibits states from banning abortion before fetal viability, the point at which fetuses can sustain life outside the womb, or about 23 to 24 weeks into a pregnancy.
The court’s six-member conservative majority seemed prepared to uphold the Mississippi law, and several justices indicated that they would vote to overrule Roe outright. A decision in the case is not expected until late June.
Understand the Supreme Court’s Momentous Term
New York gun law. The justices will consider the constitutionality of a longstanding New York law that imposes strict limits on carrying guns in public. The court has not issued a major Second Amendment ruling in more than a decade.
A test for Chief Justice Roberts. The highly charged docket will test the leadership of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who lost his position at the court’s ideological center with the arrival last fall of Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
A drop in public support. Chief Justice Roberts now leads a court increasingly associated with partisanship. Recent polls show the court is suffering a distinct drop in public support following a spate of unusual late-night summer rulings in politically charged cases.
The Texas law flouts Roe’s viability line by barring abortions once fetal cardiac activity can be detected, usually around six weeks of pregnancy.
The law was challenged by abortion providers and the Biden administration. In addition to the court’s decision in the abortion providers’s case, it also issued a brief, unsigned opinion on Friday dismissing the Justice Department’s appeal, with only Justice Sotomayor noting a dissent.
Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/10/us/politics/texas-abortion-supreme-court.html
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