OPINION | This article contains commentary that reflects the author's opinion.
The U.S. Supreme Court handed pro-life conservatives a major victory by allowing Texas’ heartbeat bill to remain in effect despite overwhelming challenges from the Left.
A federal lawsuit by abortion providers challenging the constitutionality of Texas’ new ban was unsuccessful in overturning the bill.
The heartbeat bill currently bans abortions after roughly six weeks of pregnancy, which is when a heartbeat is usually detected.
The Supreme Court allowed the Texas law to remain in effect as the lawsuit proceeds in a lower federal court.
It is now after midnight central time and there has been no ruling from the Supreme Court on the Texas law that bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. That means the law has officially taken effect. An emergency request to block the law remains pending at SCOTUS.
— SCOTUSblog (@SCOTUSblog) September 1, 2021
Rebecca Parma, Texas Right to Life senior legislative associate, explained, “The Texas Heartbeat Act is novel in approach, allowing for citizens to hold abortionists accountable through private lawsuits.”
“No heartbeat law passed by another state has taken this strategy. Additionally, the bill does not punish women who obtain abortions,” she added.
Abortion is now virtually illegal in Texas.
— Lila Rose (@LilaGraceRose) September 1, 2021
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But the justices could eventually answer that question once the lawsuit, Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson, winds its way through lower courts.
Also Friday, the Supreme Court said that a second lawsuit seeking to void the same law, one filed by the Biden administration, should not have been granted a review by the justices.
The law, which is unique in allowing private citizens to enforce it, has not been used against any abortion provider since it took effect in September.
Abortion providers nonetheless sued to have the law ruled unconstitutional and barred from being deployed against them in the meantime.
The rulings Friday came more than a week after the high court heard oral arguments in a separate case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, in which the state of Mississippi asked the justices to overturn decades-old precedents supporting a constitutional right to abortion. Mississippi’s new law bans abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy except “in medical emergencies or for severe fetal abnormality.”
