Abortion providers will be permitted to challenge the state law effectively banning nearly all abortions after the six-week mark, the court ruled.
But abortion providers will only be permitted to sue a narrow group of state officials in their challenges, a restriction advocates say will hamper their ability to protect pregnant people’s right to an abortion under Roe v. Wade.
“We can’t sue state judges or clerks, we can’t sue attorney general Ken Paxton,” said Rosann Mariapurram, executive director of Jane’s Due Process, a Texas-based reproductive rights organization involved in challenging the abortion law.
“We’re only allowed to sue the medical licensing boards, or the board that does accreditation for doctors. And that’s such a narrow set of people that it’s like they didn’t want to believe we actually had a right to sue, but just narrowed who we can bring the cases against instead,” Mariapurram explained.
Texas’ abortion ban gives private citizens the power to sue people who seek abortions and those who provide them. In doing so, the lawmakers behind it aim to shift enforcement responsibility away from state officials. Friday’s Supreme Court decision did not address whether this tactic undermines Roe v. Wade as advocates claim it does.
“The impact on regular everyday people is that you cannot get abortion." - Rosann Mariapurram
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Earlier last week, a judge in Texas ruled that the abortion ban violates the Texas State Constitution. The judge didn't address abortion rights in the decision, and instead ruled that the enforcement measures it uses were unlawful. The judge didn't issue an injunction, meaning the ruling doesn't stop state officials from enforcing the law.
Made up of a majority of conservative justices, the Supreme Court also avoided addressing abortion rights, focusing their decision instead on enforcement measures and deferring further judgment to lower federal courts. Similar to the Texas judge’s ruling, there's nothing in the majority opinion from the Supreme Court that blocks state officials from carrying out the law.
“The impact on regular everyday people is that you cannot get abortion," Mariapurram said. "And the only way to take that back is for us to sort of take back our state government because that’s how they did this stuff."
Texas’ state law is the “testing ground” for laws that get around Roe v. Wade without addressing abortion rights head on, Mariapurram explained.
“State legislators can really just copy and paste our law and introduce it in legislative sessions next year,” she said.
Since Texas’ law was introduced this summer, lawmakers in at least four different states have introduced similar legislation offloading anti-abortion enforcement onto private citizens.
But anti-abortion groups have meanwhile celebrated the restrictive legislation. They're also banking on the conservative Supreme Court to eventually overturn Roe v. Wade.
"Regardless of whether the courts allow [the Texas] law to continue, we hope the Supreme Court will reverse the terrible Roe v. Wade precedent so states can completely protect unborn babies from the tragedy of abortion," Joe Pojman, executive director of the Texas Alliance for Life, said in a statement on Friday.
