Texas Supreme Court on Friday paved the way for the country’s toughest abortion law to remain in place in a ruling that again deflated the hopes of the clinics to stop – or even pause – restrictions at any time soon.
The Republican court ruling is the latest defeat for Texas abortion providers, who have now lost both the U.S. Supreme Court and the state’s highest court since the ban on abortions after about six weeks pregnant became effective in September.
It is likely to further encourage other Republican-controlled states that are now pushing for similar laws, including neighboring Oklahoma, where many Texas women have crossed state borders to have abortions over the past six months. The Republican-controlled Oklahoma Senate on Thursday approved half a dozen anti-abortion measures, including a Texas-style ban.
The decision by the Texas Supreme Court ruled whether medical license officers had an enforcement role under the law known as Senate Act 8 and could therefore be sued by clinics seeking any way to stop them. restrictions.
But writing to the court, Judge Jeffrey Boyd said those state officials have no enforcement authority, “neither directly nor indirectly.”
Texas abortion providers did not immediately comment on the ruling, but had already acknowledged that they were running out of options and that the law would remain in effect for the foreseeable future.
Texas Right to Life, the state’s largest anti-abortion group, welcomed the decision.
“This is a great victory for the TX Heartbeat Act!” the group’s media director Kimberlyn Schwartz said Twitter. “We have said from the beginning that the demand for abortionists should be rejected, and we are grateful that the law continues to save thousands of lives.”
The USA Supreme Court has signposted in a separate Mississippi case that would revoke abortion rights and possibly overturn her historic decision Roe v. Wade, in a sentence expected later this year.
The number of monthly abortions in Texas fell more than 50 percent in the two months after the law went into effect, according to state health figures. But these data only tell part of the story, and researchers say the number of Texas women who connect to the Internet to receive abortion pills by mail has increased considerably.
Texas law makes no exceptions in cases of rape or incest.
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