News

Justice Department Asks Supreme Court To Block Restrictive Texas Abortion Law

Pro-choice activists hold signs outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Monday, Oct. 4, 2021. The court's conservative wing to offers a menu of opportunities exploit its 6-3 majority, and give Republicans the type of payoff they envisioned when they pushed through her Senate confirmation just before the 2020 election. Photographer: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The Department of Justice has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block the Texas abortion law which essentially outlaws abortions in the state after an appeals court allowed it to remain in effect.

The DOJ argued that the bill could cause “substantial harm to the United States’ sovereign interests and would disserve the public interest.”

The DOJ added: “If Texas’s scheme is permissible, no constitutional right is safe from state-sanctioned sabotage of this kind.”

The Texas ban makes abortions illegal as soon as a fetal heartbeat is detected. Most abortions after six weeks are illegal under this new law.

Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter!

A week of political news in your in-box.
We find the news you need to know, so you don't have to.

Last week, a federal judge blocked the law, stating: “a person’s right under the Constitution to choose to obtain an abortion prior to fetal viability is well established.”

The appeals court allowed the law to remain in effect. “It is ordered that Appellant’s emergency motion to stay the preliminary injunction pending appeal is temporarily held in abeyance pending further order by this motions panel,” the court’s ruling read.

Elizabeth Letsou