Texas moves to reinstate abortion law
Moves leave abortion clinics unsure how to proceed
AUSTIN, Texas — Texas on Friday asked a federal appeals court to swiftly reinstate the most restrictive abortion law in the U.S., which, until this week, had banned most abortions in the state since early September.
The request puts the Texas law known as Senate Bill 8 back before the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which previously allowed the restrictions to move forward.
Even after U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman suspended the law Wednesday, many physicians in Texas are still declining to perform abortions, worried that doing so could put them in legal jeopardy.
The result is that abortion services in Texas — which had about two dozen clinics prior to the law taking effect Sept. 1 — remain far from normal, even with the law on hold.
The law bans abortions in
Texas once cardiac activity is detected, usually around six weeks, and is enforced solely through lawsuits filed by private citizens against abortion providers — a novel approach that helped Texas evade an early wave of legal challenges.
Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office told the court that since the state does not enforce the law, it cannot “be held responsible for the filings of private citizens that Texas is powerless to prevent.”
His office asked the court to act by Tuesday, if not sooner.
Pitman had called the law an “offensive deprivation” of the constitutional right to an abortion.
The lawsuit was brought by the Biden administration, which has warned that other GOP-controlled states may move to adopt similar measures unless the Texas law is struck down.
It is unclear how many abortions Texas clinics have performed in the short time since the law was put on hold. By Thursday, at least six abortions providers had resumed normal services or were gearing up to do so, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights.
Prior to Pitman’s blistering 113-page order, other courts had declined to stop the law, which bans abortions before some women even know they are pregnant. That includes the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court, which allowed it to move forward in September without ruling on the constitutionality of the law.
One of the first providers to resume normal services was Whole Woman’s Health, which operates four clinics in Texas.
“There’s actually hope from patients and from staff, and I think there’s a little desperation in that hope,” Amy Hagstrom Miller, president of Whole Woman’s Health, said Thursday. “Folks know this opportunity could be short-lived.”
The Texas law leaves enforcement solely up to private citizens, who are entitled to collect $10,000 in damages if they bring successful lawsuits against not just abortion providers who violate the restrictions, but anyone who helps a woman obtain an abortion. Republicans crafted the law to allow retroactive lawsuits if the restrictions are set aside by one court, but later restored by another.