In a win for pro-life advocates, on Monday, a Federal Appeals Court rejected a request by abortion providers to reverse a Texas law forbidding abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected.
Known as the Texas Heartbeat Act, the law bans abortion (except where the mother’s life is at risk) after the detection of an unborn child’s heartbeat, which occurs about six weeks after conception.
The Act was introduced as Senate Bill 8 (S.B. 8) and House Bill 1515 (H.B. 1515) on March 11, 2021, and signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott on May 19, 2021.
Politico reports that in a 2-1 decision, the New Orleans-based Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals refused the request to “remand the case back to a U.S. district judge who previously blocked the law.”
Instead, the court sent the case to the Texas Supreme Court, at the request of Texas’ pro-life Attorney General, Ken Paxton.
Politico referred to the Texas law as an “unusual anti-abortion statute.” However, the legislation is not unique to Texas. Iowa’s Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a Fetal Heartbeat bill on May 4, 2018.
“The move by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals effectively prolongs the litigation over the unusual anti-abortion statute, leaving in place a law that has led to a dramatic reduction in the number of abortions performed in the state since the measure took effect in September,” reported Politico.
The Conservative Brief reports that the Court “held that there was too much ambiguity around the meaning of the Texas law to allow federal courts to continue to act on the legal challenge without definitive guidance from Texas’s top court.”
The U.S. Supreme Court briefly reviewed the Texas law in December, allowing the law to remain in place and limiting the ability for abortion providers to file legal challenges.
According to the Conservative Brief, SCOTUS also noted that “the case could continue against Texas licensing officials who regulate healthcare workers.”
CNN took issue with the ruling, writing:
“For more than four months, a law that bans a majority of abortions in the country’s second-most populous state has been in effect. Given the legal risks that come with violating the ban, which outlaws abortions when fetal cardiac activity is detected, clinics have been unwilling to offer the procedure in those instances — a point around six weeks into the pregnancy, before many women even realize they’re pregnant.”
In another piece, CNN tried to put a positive spin on the Court decision, noting that while the ruling will “make it difficult for [abortion] providers to resume providing abortions,” it also presents providers with a new opportunity to make their case:
“The court’s action means that the case will return to a district court for further proceedings… It provides a narrow victory for the abortion clinics, allowing them to get into court. But at the same time, the court limited which state officials could be sued by the providers, which could make it difficult for the providers to resume providing abortions after the sixth week of pregnancy.”
In a September interview posted on Twitter, Alexis McGill Johnson, CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said of the Texas law:
“Texas has literally turned back the clock 50 years. Most people don’t know that they are actually pregnant by six weeks. 85% of abortions happen in Texas after six weeks.”
“Texas has literally turned back the clock 50 years,” Planned Parenthood President and CEO Alexis McGill Johnson says about the state’s six-week abortion ban.
“Most people don’t know that they are actually pregnant by six weeks. 85% of abortions happen in Texas after six weeks.” pic.twitter.com/7x7G9a5re0
— CNN Newsroom (@CNNnewsroom) September 1, 2021
The Conservative Brief records Johnson’s comments after the court’s ruling:
“While the Court did not put a complete end to our legal challenge, its failure to stop Texas’s deliberate nullification of the constitutional right to abortion within its borders makes the Court complicit in widespread chaos and harm to Texans, and responsible for giving the green light for other states to circumvent the constitution through copycat laws.”
The Center for Reproductive Rights expressed their fears in a statement on their website, noting the upcoming “anniversary of Roe v. Wade could be the last.”
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