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Texas's strict new abortion law has eluded multiple court challenges. Abortion rights advocates ...
Politics
Texas’s strict new abortion law has eluded multiple court challenges. Abortion rights advocates think they have a new path to get it blocked.
The new strategy is a response to attacks by antiabortion groups on organizations raising money to help low-income patients get access to abortions.
By Caroline Kitchener
Today at 1:37 p.m. EDT
The initial attacks came in court and on social media, when a group of antiabortion lawyers accused two Texas abortion rights groups of funding abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, the legal limit under Texas’s restrictive abortion ban. They filed official requests in court for more information on the abortions, then took to Twitter, warning that anyone who helped fund abortions through these two groups “could get sued.”
“The Lilith Fund and the Texas Equal Access Fund have admitted to paying for abortions in violation of the Texas Heartbeat Act,” said Tom Brejcha, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Society, an antiabortion legal group, referring to abortions the groups helped to facilitate over a two-day period in October when a judge temporarily blocked the ban. ... Now, abortion rights groups think those threats may have opened the door to something that has eluded them ever since the law took effect in September: a viable path for a legal challenge.
{snip}
Ahead of a separate Mississippi case that could overturn or significantly weaken Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court has passed up three opportunities block the Texas law, which is at odds with the landmark precedent that has protected the constitutional right to abortion for nearly 50 years. The case filed by Texas abortion funds will open another potential pathway to the high court, lawyers say, presenting an opportunity for the justices to rule on the merits of the law itself, rather than issues about who has legal grounds to sue.
While previous federal lawsuits were filed in Texas, these were filed in Chicago and Washington, D.C., allowing them to avoid the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit , the appeals court that handles Texas cases. The 5th Circuit is one of the most conservative appeals courts in the country and has upheld the Texas law multiple times. If the lawsuits are appealed, they would instead be heard by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit Court and U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
{snip}
By Caroline Kitchener
Caroline Kitchener is a national political reporter, covering abortion, at The Washington Post. She is the author of "Post Grad: Five Women and Their First Year Out of College." Twitter https://twitter.com/CAKitchener
Texas’s strict new abortion law has eluded multiple court challenges. Abortion rights advocates think they have a new path to get it blocked.
The new strategy is a response to attacks by antiabortion groups on organizations raising money to help low-income patients get access to abortions.
By Caroline Kitchener
Today at 1:37 p.m. EDT
CORRECTION
A previous version of this article misstated the appeals court where the abortion funds’ lawsuits would be heard by. They would go before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit Court and the D.C. Circuit, not the 5th Circuit. The article has been corrected.
The initial attacks came in court and on social media, when a group of antiabortion lawyers accused two Texas abortion rights groups of funding abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, the legal limit under Texas’s restrictive abortion ban. They filed official requests in court for more information on the abortions, then took to Twitter, warning that anyone who helped fund abortions through these two groups “could get sued.”
“The Lilith Fund and the Texas Equal Access Fund have admitted to paying for abortions in violation of the Texas Heartbeat Act,” said Tom Brejcha, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Society, an antiabortion legal group, referring to abortions the groups helped to facilitate over a two-day period in October when a judge temporarily blocked the ban. ... Now, abortion rights groups think those threats may have opened the door to something that has eluded them ever since the law took effect in September: a viable path for a legal challenge.
{snip}
Ahead of a separate Mississippi case that could overturn or significantly weaken Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court has passed up three opportunities block the Texas law, which is at odds with the landmark precedent that has protected the constitutional right to abortion for nearly 50 years. The case filed by Texas abortion funds will open another potential pathway to the high court, lawyers say, presenting an opportunity for the justices to rule on the merits of the law itself, rather than issues about who has legal grounds to sue.
While previous federal lawsuits were filed in Texas, these were filed in Chicago and Washington, D.C., allowing them to avoid the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit , the appeals court that handles Texas cases. The 5th Circuit is one of the most conservative appeals courts in the country and has upheld the Texas law multiple times. If the lawsuits are appealed, they would instead be heard by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit Court and U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
{snip}
By Caroline Kitchener
Caroline Kitchener is a national political reporter, covering abortion, at The Washington Post. She is the author of "Post Grad: Five Women and Their First Year Out of College." Twitter https://twitter.com/CAKitchener