December 10, 2021
The Supreme Court ruled on the controversial Texas abortion law this morning.
And the ruling was what experts would call a “mixed bag” because there are two parts.
Let’s start with the part of the ruling that says – abortion advocates in Texas can move forward with their legal attempts to put a stop to this Texas law known as SB8. But the other part of the ruling says while those advocates continue to fight in court, this Texas law can continue.
SB8 is the law that took effect in Texas in September of this year. It essentially bans all abortions after six-weeks. It’s important to understand the justices were *not* weighing whether it’s constitutional for a state government to –in essence– ban abortions – they were looking at whether or not the novel enforcement mechanism written into this particular law was legal. That enforcement mechanism was designed to avoid federal judicial review by taking enforcement away from the state government and instead allowing private citizens to police it and civilly sue.
Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion. In that ruling he said abortion advocates can sue over SB8 – but he said state’s judges, clerks and attorney general were not the right people to sue instead, he said the proper defendants to sue would be the executive licensing officials who have regulatory authority over abortion providers.
Part two of the ruling allows this Texas law to remain intact while abortion advocates take these cases back to court.
So now what? Expect abortion advocates in Texas to file a new federal lawsuit against those specific people. That case probably follow the exact same ruling path it went through prior to this supreme court review.
Chief Justice John Roberts said that the lower federal courts should take up and resolve these cases brought by the abortion advocates “without delay” because of the “chilling effect of this state law.”
Keep in mind – the Justices also heard the big Mississippi abortion case just 10 days ago. In that case – the Justices are looking at the substance of whether or not that state’s law that blocks abortions is unconstitutional – which is a direct challenge to the decades old abortion right granted under Roe vs. Wade. That ruling is expected to come down at the end of the supreme court’s term in June.
Read the Supreme Court’s ruling here.
