Supreme Court holds off on blocking Texas abortion law, will hear arguments

Oct 22, 2021

Ben Burke Producer

By Ben Burke (Producer)

The Supreme Court refused President Joe Biden’s request to block Texas’ controversial abortion law Friday. However, the court also agreed to hear arguments on the law.

“The petition is granted limited to the following question: May the United States bring suit in federal court and obtain injunctive or declaratory relief against the State, state court judges, state court clerks, other state officials, or all private parties to prohibit S.B. 8 from being enforced,” the court said in its announcement. “The case is set for oral argument on Monday, Nov. 1, 2021.”

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a partial dissent to the announcement regarding the abortion law. While she said “the court is right to calendar this application for argument”, she wrote she would have blocked the law immediately.

“The promise of future adjudication offers cold comfort, however, for Texas women seeking abortion care, who are entitled to relief now,” Sotomayor wrote. “These women will suffer personal harm from delaying their medical care, and as their pregnancies progress, they may even be unable to obtain abortion care altogether.”

With the exception of a district court-ordered pause that lasted just 48 hours, the law has been in effect since September. It was written to evade early federal court review by putting enforcement of it into the hands of private citizens rather than state officials.

A week after the law took effect, the Justice Department sued the state of Texas in order to get the law invalidated. In response to that lawsuit, as well as President Biden’s request, the state made its own appeal to the Supreme Court Thursday.

“The United States’ lawsuit against Texas is extraordinary in its breadth and consequence, having an impact on precedents that have existed far longer than any right to abortion has been recognized,” the state said in its appeal. “Specifically, it asks the Court to ignore (among other things) requirements of justiciability, standing, and a cognizable cause of action—all so that the Court can reach the merits of the government’s challenge to Texas’s Senate Bill 8.”