Abortion Providers Ask SCOTUS to Return Texas Abortion Law Case Back to the District Court

On Monday, abortion providers who challenged Texas’ “heartbeat” abortion law, S.B. 8, asked the Supreme Court of the United States to return the case back to a district court that previously ruled in their favor.

Last month, as I reported, SCOTUS upheld Texas’ law that bans abortions after fetal heartbeat detection after abortion providers and the Department of Justice (DOJ) sued the state over the law. SCOTUS did not allow the DOJ’s lawsuit to move forward and returned the abortion providers’ case back to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. 

According to NBC News, the abortion providers say that the case is “stuck” at the Fifth Circuit and should be returned to a federal judge at the district court so they can move forward with their legal challenege. As Rebecca covered in October, an Obama administration-appointed district judge, Robert Pitman, ruled in favor of the abortion providers in the lawsuit and blocked the enforcement of S.B. 8.

In his 113-page ruling, Pitman described S.B. 8 as “flagrantly unconstitutional” and an “offensive deprivation of such an important right.” In addition to outlawing abortion at roughly six weeks gestation, S.B. 8 allows private citizens to pursue legal action against anyone would provides an illegal abortion. Those who successfully bring lawsuits under S.B. 8 can receive $10,000.

“The Fifth Circuit has no issues left to resolve in the appeal before it and no authority to retain jurisdiction,” lawyers for the Center for Reproductive Rights said in their petition to SCOTUS. In the meantime, they claim Texans have “been unable to exercise their federal constitutional right to terminate their pregnancy.”

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While the appeals court is scheduled to hear the case this Friday, Fifth Circuit Judge Stephen Higginson, another Obama-era appointee, said in his dissent last month that SCOTUS should have remanded the case back to the district court. 

“I respectfully disagree with the majority’s decision to hear oral argument on this remand from the United States Supreme Court. I do not read the Supreme Court’s judgment, especially in a case of this magnitude and acceleration, to countenance such delay,” Higginson said in his dissent on Monday. “I would immediately remand the case to the district court.”