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BY CARRIE BAKER | On Thursday, September 9, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland filed a lawsuit against Texas, seeking to block S.B. 8—the state’s newly-enacted abortion ban. S.B. 8 bans virtually all abortions, with no exceptions for rape or incest, and empowers private citizens to sue anyone who helps a woman obtain an abortion, rewarding them a $10,000 bounty plus attorney fees if they win a case.
On a 5–4 vote, the Supreme Court allowed S.B. 8 to take effect on September 1, ruling on procedural grounds while explicitly denying their decision was based on any conclusion about the constitutionality of the Texas law. As a result of S.B. 8, reproductive healthcare providers in Texas have ceased offering abortion services after six weeks of pregnancy. Texans now have to go out of state to obtain most abortion healthcare, requiring them to travel over 200 miles farther each way, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
“The act is clearly unconstitutional under long-standing Supreme Court precedent,” said U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland at a press conference announcing the lawsuit. “The obvious and expressly acknowledged intention of this statutory scheme is to prevent women from exercising their constitutional rights by thwarting judicial review for as long as possible,” said Garland.
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