Denver Newsroom, Jul 5, 2022 / 14:12 pm
The Supreme Court of Texas on Friday ruled that the state may enforce its 1925 law banning abortion, reversing the decision of a district judge.
The July 1 decision “does not permit prosecutors to bring criminal cases against abortion providers, but it exposes anyone who assists in the procurement of an abortion to fines and lawsuits,” The Texas Tribune reported.
Jonathan Covey, policy director for Texas Values, a religious freedom organization, said July 2 that “We are grateful the Texas Supreme Court blocked this temporary restraining order that clinics were using as an excuse to kill pre-born babies. No matter how hard abortionists try to perpetuate murder, we know that life is a human right.”
The president of Whole Woman’s Health, an abortion provider in the state, said July 2, “With the pre-Roe ban reinstated, Whole Woman’s Health is forced to cease providing abortion in our 4 Texas clinics. This morning, our clinic staff embarked on the heartbreaking conversations with the patients whose appointments must be cancelled, and our clinics have started the wind down process.”
Judge Christine Weems in Harris County had granted a temporary restraining order against the law’s enforcement June 28.
The law punishes performing an abortion with two to 10 years imprisonment.
Texas also adopted a “trigger law”, signed in June 2021, making it illegal for anyone to “knowingly perform, induce, or attempt an abortion,” with exceptions for situations where the life of the mother would be at risk in continuing the pregnancy.
That law will take effect 30 days after the judgement in the Supreme Court case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade and returned the regulation of abortion to the states.
Women who have abortions will not be held liable or penalized under the trigger law. Abortionists could be fined $100,000 for illegal abortions.
The state’s law banning abortion from about six weeks into pregnancy has been enforced since the Dobbs decision.
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