Justice Department to protect women seeking abortions in Texas
The Justice Department is exploring “all options” to challenge Texas’ restrictive abortion law, Attorney General Merrick Garland said Monday, as he vowed to provide support to abortion clinics that are “under attack” in the state and to protect those seeking and providing reproductive health services.
The move by the nation’s top law-enforcement official comes just days after the Supreme Court refused to block a Texas abortion statute that bans the procedure as early as six weeks into pregnancy with no exceptions for rape or incest. The court’s action stands as the most serious threat to Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling establishing a woman’s right to abortion, in nearly 50 years.
President Joe Biden has sharply criticized the high court’s decision, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has pledged to call a vote this month on legislation that would enshrine a woman’s right to an abortion into federal law.
“We will not tolerate violence against those seeking to obtain or provide reproductive health services, physical obstruction or property damage in violation of the FACE Act,” said Garland, referring to the Freedom of Access to
Clinic Entrances Act, a
1994 law that prohibits threats and the obstruction of a person seeking reproductive health services or of providers.
Garland said the Justice Department has reached out to U.S. Attorneys’ offices and FBI field offices in Texas to “discuss our enforcement authorities.”
“The department will provide support from federal law enforcement when an abortion clinic or reproductive health center is under attack,” Garland said.
Garland’s move, like the new law, will probably reverberate well beyond Texas state lines. Republican officials in at least seven states across the country have suggested that they might change their states’ laws to mirror the legislation in Texas.
The Texas law allows anyone to file a lawsuit against any other person who has aided someone in obtaining an abortion, with the potential for a $10,000 payoff.
Abortion providers say the ban effectively eliminates the guarantee in Roe v. Wade that women have a right to end their pregnancies before viability, and that states are barred from imposing undue burdens on that decision.
Biden has denounced the Texas law as “almost unAmerican” and said it creates a “vigilante system” under which private citizens are empowered to police the ban.