Federal Judge Halts Enforcement of Texas Abortion Law.
Last edited Thu Oct 7, 2021, 02:10 AM - Edit history (1)
The Justice Department had sued to block the law, which banned nearly all abortions in the state.
A federal judge on Wednesday granted the Justice Department’s request to halt enforcement of the recently passed Texas law that bans nearly all abortions in the state while the legal battle over the statute makes its way through the federal courts.
In his 113-page ruling, Robert L. Pitman, a Federal District Court judge in Austin, Texas, sided with the Biden administration, which had sued to halt a law that has changed the landscape of the abortion fight and further fueled the national debate over whether abortion will remain legal across the country.
His decision to pause enforcement of the law, known as Senate Bill 8, could have an immediate impact on women in Texas who have scrambled to find health care providers in other parts of the country to get abortions.
“From the moment S.B. 8 went into effect, women have been unlawfully prevented from exercising control over their own lives in ways that are protected by the Constitution,” Judge Pitman wrote in his opinion.
“This court will not sanction one more day of this offensive deprivation of such an important right,” he added.
Judge Pitman enjoined the State of Texas or anyone acting on its behalf from enforcing the law. He also said state court judges and state court clerks who had the power to enforce or administer the law were not to do so. . .
Last month, the Justice Department sued Texas over the law, which bans abortions once cardiac activity can be detected in an embryo, usually after about six weeks of pregnancy. Health care experts say that women may not even know they are pregnant during that time frame. And the law makes no exception for pregnancies that are the result of rape or incest.
The department then filed an emergency motion requesting an order that would prevent Texas from enforcing Senate Bill 8 while its lawsuit moves through the courts.
At the center of the legal debate over the law is its enforcement mechanism, which essentially deputizes private citizens, rather than the state’s executive branch, to enforce the restrictions by suing anyone who performs an abortion or “aids and abets” a procedure. Plaintiffs are incentivized to file suit because they recover legal fees, as well as $10,000 if they win.'>>>
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/06/us/politics/texas-abortion-law.html?
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