WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court said Friday that it would soon take up a case against Texas’ near-total abortion ban, but that the law would remain in effect in the meantime.
The decision to defer action on the law, Senate Bill 8, comes a day after Texas urged the high court to deny the federal government’s request to block its enforcement.
The law, which took effect in September and immediately received legal challenges, bans abortions in the state as early as six weeks of pregnancy, before most women know they are even pregnant.
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case on Nov. 1, ahead of the oral arguments set for early December in the separate Mississippi abortion case. The Mississippi law bans most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy and is intended to challenge the 1973 landmark ruling Roe v. Wade protecting a woman’s right to an abortion.
Texas said Thursday that the federal government has no authority to sue the state and that the federal judge who originally blocked the law wrongly directed his order at state court judges and people who the law allows to sue. The state encouraged the court to overrule its abortion precedents.
“There will always be states who seek to protect unborn life through their laws, and there will be those who seek to challenge such laws, unless and until this court returns the question of abortion to where it belongs—the states,” the Texas attorneys wrote.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
