After weeks of legal battles over a recently enacted Texas law that prohibits abortions once a heartbeat is detected, the Biden Administration has asked that the Supreme Court block its enforcement.
The development comes after the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit stayed a preliminary injunction barring enforcement of the law, allowing it to go back into effect. In a court filing Monday, the Acting Solicitor General, on behalf of the United States of America, requested an order vacating the stay.
That ruling came after U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman granted the Biden administration’s plea to temporarily halt enforcement of the abortion ban in early October, stating “this Court will not sanction one more day of this offensive deprivation of such an important right.”
Per the law’s enforcement mechanism, any private citizen can sue a medical practitioner or individual who performs or aids in a woman securing an abortion in the state of Texas.
The complainants argued that the Texas measure violated Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion on a national level, and related decisions, in which the Supreme Court held that “a State may not prohibit any woman from making the ultimate decision to terminate her pregnancy before viability.”
The Texas law “defies those precedents by banning abortion long before viability — indeed, before many women even realize they are pregnant,” it read.
Source: National Review
