Via AAN:
The Supreme Court has now issued a new ruling allowing a lawsuit challenging the legality of Texas’s pro-life ‘heartbeat’ law to proceed.
As The New York Times reports:
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Friday allowed a challenge to a Texas abortion law that banned most abortions in the state after about six weeks to proceed, ruling that abortion providers in the state may sue some state officials in federal court despite the procedural hurdles imposed by the unusual structure of the law.
But the Supreme Court refused to block the law in the meantime, saying that lower courts should consider the matter.
The development was both a victory for and a disappointment to supporters of abortion rights, who had hoped that the justices would reverse course from a Sept. 1 ruling that had allowed the law to go into effect, causing clinics in the state to curtail performing the procedure and forcing many women seeking abortions to travel out of state.
…
The challenges to the Texas law focused not on the law’s constitutionality but on whether the law could be challenged in court by either abortion providers in the state or the federal government. The cases provided the court with an opportunity to revisit its earlier decision allowing the law to go into effect before the justices had grappled with its constitutionality or settled the question of how it could be challenged.
The decision comes a week after the court heard arguments in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health, a case many believe may end up with the court potentially striking down or significantly restricting the landmark ruling in Roe vs. Wade.
