The Biden administration is calling on the Supreme Court to block a controversial Texas abortion law and ultimately rule conclusively on its constitutionality before the end of the term, an unusual request to get the high court involved at such an early state. Texas on Thursday told SCOTUS that if it does decide to give a final ruling on the law this term, it should also consider whether to overturn Roe v. Wade and other rulings protecting the right to abortion over the past 50 years, the Associated Press reported.
The Biden administration officially asked the court this week to block the Texas legislation, which effectively bans abortions after six weeks or when a fetal heartbeat can be detected. The law took effect in September despite public outcry and protests, becoming the strictest limit on the procedure in the country, the AP reported.
Texas responded to the Biden administration's action Thursday and encouraged the court to leave the law in place. The state also said that it was opposed to the Biden administration's calls to rule conclusively this term, but asked that SCOTUS also look into its previous rulings on abortion rights if it complies with the request.
While it would be out of the ordinary for the court to make a definitive ruling before a federal appeals court has had the chance to do so, it would not be a first. SCOTUS justices have short-circuited the typical timeline for cases to reach the high court a handful of times in recent decades, with the most recent occurring in 2019 over a Trump administration bid to include a citizenship question on the 2020 Census, the AP reported.
For more reporting from the Associated Press, see below.
In its court filing, Texas defended an order by a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that allowed the abortion law to go back into effect after a lower-court judge put it on hold.
"In sum, far from being demonstrably wrong, the Fifth Circuit's conclusion that Texas is likely to prevail was entirely right," the state wrote.
The Biden administration argues the law is "clearly unconstitutional" because it bans abortions at roughly six weeks, long before a fetus can survive outside the womb. The Supreme Court's major abortion rulings make clear that states can regulate but not prohibit abortions before the point of fetal viability.
But the Texas law was written to evade early federal court review and, apart from a 48-hour period in early October, the effort has succeeded. Clinics have said abortions are down by about 80 percent since the law took effect last month, and women in Texas have flocked to clinics in other states to obtain abortions.
The court already has the issue on its agenda in a case from Mississippi that will be argued on December 1.
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Zoe Strozewski is a Newsweek reporter based in New Jersey. Her focus is reporting on U.S. and global politics. Zoe ... Read more
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