On Friday, the Texas Supreme Court blocked a lower court’s ruling that allowed abortion clinics in the state to resume abortion services following the Supreme Court’s overturn of landmark case Roe v. Wade.
Townhall reported last week how a judge in Harris County issued a temporary restraining order on the state’s “trigger” law after a lawsuit was filed by the pro-abortion Center for Reproductive Rights, the ACLU, and two Texas-based law firms. Some abortion clinics resumed services up to six weeks of pregnancy, as the state as a “heartbeat” law that went into effect last year.
The New York Post noted that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, requested that the Texas Supreme Court temporarily put the Harris County judge’s order on hold. On Saturday morning, Paxton shared a tweet that the Court upheld the state’s pre-Roe laws protecting the unborn.
Pro-life victory! Thanks to my appeal, SCOTX has slapped down the abortion providers and the district court carrying their water. Our state’s pre-Roe statutes banning abortion in Texas are 100% good law. Litigation continues, but I’ll keep winning for Texas’s unborn babies. pic.twitter.com/xgQuDtEXQu
— Attorney General Ken Paxton (@KenPaxtonTX) July 2, 2022
On June 24, the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey in the majority opinion for the abortion case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The case surrounded a 15-week abortion ban in Mississippi. The judges ruled 6-3 to uphold Mississippi’s law and 5-4 to overturn Roe.
In the Supreme Court’s opinion, the Justices wrote that the U.S. Constitution does not protect the right to abortion and determined that Roe and Casey were wrongly decided.
“The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives,” the opinion stated.
“Like the infamous decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, Roe was also egregiously wrong and on a collision course with the Constitution from the day it was decided. Casey perpetuated its errors, calling both sides of the national controversy to resolve their debate, but in doing so, Casey necessarily declared a winning side. Those on the losing side—those who sought to advance the State’s interest in fetal life—could no longer seek to persuade their elected representatives to adopt policies consistent with their views. The Court short-circuited the democratic process by closing it to the large number of Americans who disagreed with Roe.”
The language in the opinion is similar to an amicus brief filed by Fitch last summer, which Townhall covered. In her brief, Fitch urged the Supreme Court to strike down Roe and Casey.
“Roe and Casey are egregiously wrong. The conclusion that abortion is a constitutional right has no basis in text, structure, history, or tradition,” Fitch said in the brief. “So the question becomes whether this Court should overrule those decisions. It should.”