Zach Despart/The Texas Tribune
Sunday, July 03, 2022 | 05:00
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Austin— Texas can enforce its 1925 abortion ban, the state Supreme Court ruled Friday night, a decision that exposes abortion providers to lawsuits and financial penalties if they continue to perform the procedure.
The court overturned a decision by a district judge in Houston, which on Tuesday had temporarily blocked the state’s long-standing abortion law from taking effect. That law made performing an abortion, by any method, punishable by between two and 10 years in prison.
Friday’s decision bars prosecutors from bringing criminal cases against abortion providers, but exposes anyone who assists in obtaining an abortion to fines and lawsuits.
On June 24, the federal Supreme Court overturned the ruling Roe vs. Wade, the landmark 1973 case that affirmed that access to abortion is protected by the United States Constitution. Last year, the Texas Legislature passed a “trigger law” that would automatically ban abortion from the moment of fertilization 30 days after the Supreme Court ruling, which usually comes a month after the initial opinion.
Abortion rights groups filed a lawsuit Monday in hopes of extending the period the procedure remains legal in Texas.
They argued that the 1925 ban was effectively struck down when the Supreme Court issued its decision in Roe v. Wade, and therefore cannot be enforced now.
“These laws are confusing, unnecessary and cruel,” Marc Hearron, senior counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is not a party to the lawsuit, said in a statement. “The Texas activation ban is not scheduled to go into effect for another two months, if not longer. This nearly hundred-year-old law prematurely bans essential health care, even though it was clearly repealed long ago.”
However, since the Legislature never repealed the pre-Roe law banning abortion, conservative lawmakers and legal scholars argued that abortion was once again illegal in Texas at the time of the US Supreme Court ruling.
“Although these statutes were unenforceable while Roe was on the books, they are still Texas law,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said June 24. “Under these pre-Roe statutes, abortion providers could be criminally liable for performing abortions starting today.”
Texas clinics began turning away patients the day of the federal court ruling. Nonprofits that help people access and pay for abortions have stopped distributing aid.
Some clinics resumed performing abortions Tuesday, after the Houston judge temporarily halted enforcement of the state’s pre-Roe ban, though Paxton said he would still try to prosecute them if the state Supreme Court overturned that temporary restraining order, What did you do on Friday?
Whole Women’s Health, one of the abortion providers that is a party to the case, said Saturday that it would once again stop its work in Texas.
“This morning, our clinic staff embarked on heartbreaking conversations with patients whose appointments must be canceled, and our clinics have begun the process of downsizing,” President Amy Hagstrom Miller said in a statement.
A hearing is scheduled for July 12 to decide on a more permanent restraining order. The case will eventually be heard on its merits, though in practice the automatic trigger law, which takes effect in about two months, will ensure that abortion is banned in Texas regardless of whether the 1925 law is enforced.
Some Conservative lawmakers have said they intend to continue legislating on abortion in the next session, which begins in January. With abortion illegal in Texas except in rare cases to save the life of the mother, lawmakers said they will focus their attention on improving adoption programs and preventing pregnant Texans from leaving the state to have the procedure.
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