The Supreme Court refused to issue an emergency stay allowing the Texas heartbeat law to take effect.
According to The Daily Wire:
A Texas law, which bans most abortions after 6 weeks, when a fetal heartbeat can be detected, went into effect on Wednesday morning, after both the Supreme Court and a lower federal court of appeals refused to rule on a demand from Texas abortion providers to stay the law pending further litigation.
“A controversial Texas law that bars abortions at six weeks went into effect early Wednesday morning after the Supreme Court and a federal appeals court failed to rule on pending emergency requests brought by abortion providers,” CNN reported. “The lack of judicial intervention means that the law — which is one of the strictest in the nation and bans abortion before many people know they are pregnant — goes into force absent further court intervention.”
CNN also pointed out that other “heartbeat bills” have been stayed before they were allowed to go into effect, making the Texas law an interesting exception. But the Supreme Court is not alone in refusing to rule on the stay; a lower federal court also refused to block the law because, unlike other “heartbeat” laws, the Texas measure authorizes civil — not criminal penalties.
“In the novel legal strategy, the state Legislature designed the law to prevent government officials from directly enforcing it. The move was meant to make it much more difficult to bring a pre-enforcement challenge because there are not the usual government officials to hold accountable in court,” CNN added. “Instead, the law allows private citizens — anywhere in the country — to bring civil suits against anyone who assists a pregnant person seeking an abortion in violation of the ban.”
The court then took it a step further on Wednesday night.
The Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision allowed the Texas abortion law, which bans abortions after 6 weeks, to stand. Chief Justice John Roberts dissented, but the 5 other conservative justices thought differently.
The court denied an emergency appeal by abortion providers that looked to block enforcement of the law that took effect on Wednesday.
The order was unsigned, and liberal are losing their minds thinking this is a change in precedent from the Supreme Court.
However, that is a lie. The court stated that this was not a decision on the constitutionality of the law, but just a decision based on the current appeal.
“In reaching this conclusion, we stress that we do not purport to resolve definitively any jurisdictional or substantive claim in the applicants’ lawsuit. In particular, this order is not based on any conclusion about the constitutionality of Texas’s law, and in no way limits other procedurally proper challenges to the Texas law, including in Texas state courts,” the unsigned order said.
The court’s ruling basically states that no one was able to show harm or potential for imminent harm from the law, but that doesn’t mean that a plaintiff that fits the mold couldn’t present later. This was a standing issue.