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AUSTIN, Texas (AP) – A federal judge will consider Friday whether Texas can leave in place the most restrictive abortion law in the United States, which since September has banned most abortions and sent women scrambling to get care beyond the country’s borders. -Most populous state.
A complaint filed by the Biden administration seeks to deliver the first legal blow against Texas law known as Senate Bill 8, which has so far withstood a first wave of challenges – including the United States Supreme Court allowing it to remain in effect.
“Abortion care has almost completely ceased in our state,” Dr. Ghazaleh Moayedi, a Texas abortion provider, told the U.S. House Oversight and Reform Committee during a hearing Thursday on the access to abortion.
The law, signed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in May, bans abortions in Texas once heart activity is detected, usually around six weeks, which is before some women know they are pregnant. In the short time since the law took effect on September 1, abortion providers are saying “exactly what we feared” came true, describing clinics in Texas now at risk of shutting down as neighboring states struggle to cope with a surge of patients now leading hundreds of miles from Texas. Other women, they say, are forced to carry their pregnancies to term.
Austin U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman will hear arguments on Friday about whether to temporarily stop Texas law, which is the nation’s biggest drag on constitutional abortion rights in half a century.
The Justice Department has been pushing for the court to act quickly, but it’s unclear how soon Pitman will decide.
It is also unclear how quickly one of Texas’ nearly two dozen abortion clinics would resume normal operations if the law were overturned. Texas officials would likely call for a swift overthrow of the U.S. 5th Court of Appeals, which previously allowed the restrictions to take effect.
The Texas law is just the one that sets up the biggest abortion rights test in the United States in decades, and it’s part of a larger push by Republicans nationwide to impose new restrictions. to abortion.
The U.S. Supreme Court begins a new term on Monday, which will include arguments in Mississippi’s candidacy in December overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade guaranteeing a woman’s right to an abortion.
Last month, the court failed to rule on the constitutionality of Texas law allowing it to remain in place. But abortion service providers took the 5-to-4 vote as an ominous sign of where the court might be heading, its conservative majority bolstered by three people appointed by former President Donald Trump.
Other states, mostly in the South, have passed similar laws banning abortion in the first weeks of pregnancy, all of which judges have blocked. But one wrinkle on the Texas version has so far eluded the courts: enforcement is left to private citizens, not prosecutors.
Under Texas law, anyone can take legal action not only against abortion providers, but also against those suspected of having even assisted a woman to have an abortion after detection of an abortion. heart activity. The person suing is entitled to at least $ 10,000 in damages if they win, which critics say amounts to a bounty.
The Texas attorney general’s office argued in court records this week that even if the law was temporarily suspended, providers could still face the threat of litigation for violations that could arise between a permanent decision.
“The federal government’s complaint is that the Heartbeat Act is difficult to effectively ban,” the state wrote in opposing the Biden administration’s lawsuit. “But a state does not have to write its laws to make them easily enforced.”
At least one Texas abortionist admitted to breaking the law and been sued – but not by abortion opponents. Former Illinois and Arkansas lawyers said they instead sued a San Antonio doctor in hopes of getting a judge who would strike down the law.
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