WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Friday left in place Texas’ ban on most abortions, offering only a glimmer of daylight for clinics in the state to challenge the nation’s most restrictive abortion law.
The decision, little more than a week after the court signaled it would roll back abortion rights and possibly overturn its landmark Roe v. Wade decision, was greeted with dismay by abortion rights supporters but praise by opponents.
Five conservative justices, including three appointed by former President Donald Trump, formed a majority to limit who can be sued by the clinics, a result that both sides said probably will prevent federal courts from effectively blocking the law.
Texas licensing officials may be sued, but not state court judges, court clerks or state Attorney General Ken Paxton, the court ruled. That seems to leave people free, under the unusual structure of the Texas law, to sue abortion clinics and anyone else who “aids or abets” an abortion performed after cardiac activity is detected in an embryo, around six weeks and before some women know they're pregnant.
“The Supreme Court has essentially greenlit Texas’s cynical scheme and pre vented federal courts from blocking an unconstitutional law," the Center for Reproductive Rights, which represents the Texas clinics, said on Twitter.
The court acted more than a month after hearing arguments over the law, which makes no exceptions for rape or incest.
The law has been in place for about three months, since Sept. 1. The Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion nationwide has stood since 1973.
President Joe Biden voiced concern over the high court decision to keep the Texas law in effect and restated his support for legislation that has cleared the House of Representatives and would codify in federal law the abortion right now at risk.
“We have more work to do, but I will always stand with women to protect and defend their long-recognized, constitutional right under Roe v. Wade,” Biden said in a statement.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, who has consistently voted against abortion rights, did not mention Roe in his main opinion for the court Friday. Gorsuch is one of the Trump appointees, along with Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.
Abortion providers will now attempt to run the same legal gantlet that has previously frustrated them. The federal judge who already has once blocked the law, known as S.B. 8, almost certainly will be asked to do so again. Then his decision would be reviewed by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which has twice voted to allow enforcement of the abortion ban.
In any case, it all could return to the justices, and so far there have not been five votes on the nine-member court to put the law on hold while the legal fight plays out.
“The Court should have put an end to this madness months ago, before S. B. 8 first went into effect. It failed to do so then, and it fails again today,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a separate opinion Friday.
The court's conservative majority also seems likely to roll back abortion rights in a Mississippi case that was argued last week, although that decision is not expected until spring.
If Roe is overruled, the fight over the Texas law would be largely beside the point because Texas is one of 12 states with a trigger law that would ban abortion in a post-Roe world.
Friday's high court ruling came a day after a state court judge in Texas r uled that the law’s enforcement, which rewards lawsuits against violators by awarding judgments of $10,000, is unconstitutional yet left the law in place.
Following the court's September vote, the Justice Department filed its own lawsuit over the Texas law. The justices on Friday dismissed that suit, which raised a separate set of thorny legal issues.
This story was edited for length.
