The Supreme Court allowed a Texas law that bans most abortions to stay in effect late Wednesday.
The court voted 5-4 to deny an emergency appeal from abortion rights groups and health providers that sought to block one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the nation.
Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed the “fetal heartbeat” bill into Texas law in May, USA Today reported.
The law, known as Senate Bill 8, prohibits abortions once medical professionals can detect cardiac activity, which is usually around six weeks; before many people even know they are pregnant, the news outlet reported.
According to lawyers for several clinics, 85% to 90% of procedures in Texas happen after the sixth week of pregnancy, The New York Times reported.
There are no exemptions in cases of rape or incest, according to the new law.
In addition to the ban, the law gives most private citizens the right to sue those who seek an abortion after six weeks and establishes an award of $10,000 for a successful lawsuit.
Five of the court’s six conservative justices — Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — voted to deny an emergency appeal of the Texas abortion law, effectively keeping Senate Bill 8 in place. Chief Justice John Roberts joined the court’s three liberal justices in dissent.
“In reaching this conclusion, we stress that we do not purport to resolve definitively any jurisdictional or substantive claim in the applicants’ lawsuit. In particular, this order is not based on any conclusion about the constitutionality of Texas’s law, and in no way limits other procedurally proper challenges to the Texas law, including in Texas state courts,” the unsigned order reads.
Here is what the justices wrote in the ruling:
“Presented with an application to enjoin a flagrantly unconstitutional law engineered to prohibit women from exercising their constitutional rights and evade judicial scrutiny, a majority of Justices have opted to bury their heads in the sand.” — Justice Sonia Sotomayor
“The statutory scheme before the court is not only unusual, but unprecedented. The legislature has imposed a prohibition on abortions after roughly six weeks, and then essentially delegated enforcement of that prohibition to the populace at large. The desired consequence appears to be to insulate the state from responsibility for implementing and enforcing the regulatory regime.” — Chief Justice Roberts
“Today’s ruling illustrates just how far the court’s ‘shadow-docket’ decisions may depart from the usual principles of appellate process. That ruling, as everyone must agree, is of great consequence.” — Justice Elena Kagan
“The very bringing into effect of Texas’s law may well threaten the applicants with imminent and serious harm. One of the clinic applicants has stated on its website that ‘[d]ue to Texas’ SB 8 law,’ it is ‘unable to provide abortion procedures at this time.’ Planned Parenthood South Texas, and the applicants with supporting affidavits, claim that clinics will be unable to run the financial and other risks that come from waiting for a private person to sue them under the Texas law; they will simply close, depriving care to more than half the women seeking abortions in Texas clinics.” — Justice Stephen G. Breyer
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