With ban in effect, Texas abortion clinics say they won’t terminate pregnancies after 6 weeks
By Caroline Kitchener, Emily Wax-Thibodeaux, Robert Barnes and Ann E. Marimow,
Jay Janner Austin American-Statesman/AP
AUSTIN — Texas enacted the nation’s strictest state-level abortion ban Wednesday, prohibiting the procedure in most cases after six weeks of pregnancy, with an emergency request for the U.S. Supreme Court to block the statute going unanswered.
The court could grant the request from abortion providers and their advocates in coming days. But for now, clinics in Texas said they will no longer provide abortions more than six weeks from a woman’s last period.
Providers said the law — which relies on private citizens to sue people who help women get forbidden abortions — effectively eliminates the guarantee in Roe v. Wade and subsequent Supreme Court decisions that women have a right to end their pregnancies before viability, and that states may not impose undue burdens on that decision.
It was specifically designed to turn away pre-enforcement challenges in federal courts. If the Supreme Court declines to intervene, the most likely challenge would come after the law is used by a private citizen. Then the person sued could contest the constitutionality of the law, with the backing of abortion providers and abortion rights groups.
Longtime abortion opponents claimed Wednesday as “a historic and hopeful day” in Texas, and some began soliciting tips on who might violate the ban. As they did, abortion rights advocates and providers decried the impact of the law on the women they serve.
“It’s just really unclear what the future will hold for women in Texas,” said Kathy Kleinfeld, the administrator at Houston Women’s Reproductive Services. “I really don’t know. I don’t feel pessimistic. I don’t feel optimistic. I’m just right in the middle, cautiously waiting.”
[Analysis: What to know about the Texas abortion law]
President Biden said the law “blatantly violates” a woman’s right to an abortion established by Roe.
“The Texas law will significantly impair women’s access to the health care they need, particularly for communities of color and individuals with low incomes,” he said in a statement. “And, outrageously, it deputizes private citizens to bring lawsuits against anyone who they believe has helped another person get an abortion, which might even include family members, health care workers, front desk staff at a health care clinic, or strangers with no connection to the individual.”
The Pro-Life Action League, a coalition of antiabortion groups, praised Texas for “implementing a creative new policy that recognizes the child in the womb as a member of the human family and protects her from the violence of abortion.”
“We encourage the other 49 states to catch up with Texas and continue this historic expansion of human rights,” the group’s statement said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/video/national/how-a-mississippi-anti-abortion-law-could-lead-to-overturning-roe-v-wade/2021/06/04/cf776afd-db37-46cf-a2a0-2328d8867662_video.html
[The Mississippi clinic at the center of the fight to end abortion in America]
The Texas case comes at a pivotal time for abortion rights, with Republican-led state legislatures around the country having enacted a string of increasingly restrictive laws, many of which have been blocked.
The Supreme Court this fall will consider one such statute — Mississippi’s ban on most abortions after 15 weeks. Antiabortion activists have urged the court to use that case to overturn the 1973 Roe decision.
In addition, many states, including Texas, have passed so-called trigger bills, which would almost immediately outlaw all abortions within their borders if Roe is overturned.
Federal judges across the country have cited Roe and other precedents in blocking six-week bans on abortion in other states before they took effect. But the lawsuits that stopped those statutes targeted government officials who would enforce the bans, which proponents dub “heartbeat bills” because they say that is when a doctor can first detect a fetal heartbeat. Doctors opposed to the bills dispute that description, saying the fluttering that is detected cannot exist outside the womb.
The Texas law, in contrast, empowers individuals to bring legal action in civil court against those who help women seeking a prohibited abortion.
Abortion providers and advocacy groups challenged the Texas law in July, trying to prevent state court judges and county clerks from accepting paperwork required to sue those who assist women in getting abortions.
A U.S. District Court judge in Austin said the case could proceed and scheduled a hearing for Monday to consider whether to block the law. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, which reviews appeals from Texas, called off the hearing.
That action led to the emergency petition to the Supreme Court requesting a stay of the law. Such requests don’t receive the full briefing and argument that accompany other Supreme Court actions, and are done somewhat on the fly.
Other recent emergency petitions have led to the court ending a national ban on evictions that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said was warranted because of the pandemic, as well as part of a state ban in New York, and telling the Biden administration to reinstate a Trump-era policy requiring asylum seekers to remain outside the United States.
In all three of those cases, the court’s three liberal justices dissented.
Lawyers for abortion providers told the Supreme Court on Tuesday that the statute, known by its bill number, S.B. 8, would “immediately and catastrophically reduce abortion access” in Texas and probably force more clinics to close.
About 85 to 90 percent of women who obtain abortions in Texas are at least six weeks into pregnancy, meaning this law would prohibit nearly all abortions in the state.
“Patients will have to travel out of state — in the middle of a pandemic — to receive constitutionally guaranteed health care. And many will not have the means to do so,” Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a statement. “It’s cruel, unconscionable, and unlawful.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/texas-governor-signs-fetal-heartbeat-abortion-ban/2021/05/19/7736fd85-44fa-4507-903b-02790c8001ad_video.html
In response, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) said the Supreme Court does not have jurisdiction to act against the law at this point, and that any legal challenges would have to wait until someone brought a civil action against an abortion provider or someone who aids the woman.
“This Court cannot expunge the law itself. Rather, it can enjoin only enforcement of the law,” he wrote in his brief to the court, which did not mention Roe.
The abortion providers, Paxton wrote, “have not shown that they will be personally harmed by a bill that may never be enforced against them by anyone.”
Eric Gay
AP
Texas state Rep. Donna Howard (D-Austin), at lectern, stands with fellow lawmakers in the House chamber on May 5 to oppose a bill that would ban abortions as early as six weeks and allow private citizens to enforce it through lawsuits.
[In East Texas ‘sanctuary for the unborn’ movement expands]
Individuals who are sued under the ban could be required to pay the person who brought the lawsuit at least $10,000 for each abortion the defendant was involved in. Critics say the law places a “bounty” on the heads of those who assist with abortions.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who chairs the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, urged the Senate to “act legislatively to protect the legal right to abortion for every American, regardless of where they live.”
“If you disagree with the idea that a complete stranger could, legally, demand $10,000 from you just because they disagree with your personal decisions, you should find this Texas anti-abortion ban as much of a nightmare as I do,” she said in a statement.
Whole Woman’s Health locations in Texas were not performing any abortions on Wednesday, to ensure they are fully complying with the new law, said Sonja Miller, the director of people and culture at the network’s Austin clinic.
Joseph Nelson, a doctor at the clinic, said he had to turn away multiple patients who came in for ultrasound appointments, which are required in Texas 24 hours before an abortion. These patients thought they were under six weeks gestation, Nelson said, but were already past the legal limit.
May-Ying Lam
For The Washington Post
Nurse Catalina Leano resets an exam room at Houston Women’s Reproductive Services on Monday, two days before a six-week abortion ban took effect in Texas.
A group of abortion opponents gathered outside the clinic, one of three in Austin that offer abortions. Celie Harden knelt in the dirt, rosary in hand, and prayed, even as a man drove past yelling profanities at the group.
Harden said she thought it was “fantastic” that regular citizens now have the ability to sue clinics and others who help facilitate illegal abortions. “It’s like a citizen’s arrest. If someone runs through a red light right in front of you, you go to a policeman and say, ‘Hey, did you see that?’ ”
Texas Right to Life began soliciting “anonymous tips” on its website and asking for volunteers to “join the team of pro-lifers working to enforce” the law. An online form asks tipsters to submit information about how the abortion ban may have been violated and to name a clinic or doctor potentially involved. The organization says it will “ensure that these lawbreakers are held accountable for their actions.”
[No abortions after 6 weeks: Texas clinic prepares for ban to take effect]
In Fort Worth, the Whole Woman’s Health clinic had 27 patients left in the waiting room Tuesday night who were seeking to end their pregnancies. One longtime physician who was on call was in tears, concerned about the approaching midnight deadline.
Outside the clinic, antiabortion advocates had set up lights in the parking lot.
“We were under surveillance. This is not abstract — this is real for our team,” said Amy Hagstrom Miller, chief executive of Whole Woman’s Health, which is the lead challenger to S.B. 8 in court. “This morning, I woke up feeling deep sadness. I’m worried. I am numb.”
She and other providers and advocates said they would keep fighting the bill and pushing for access to a full range of reproductive health care for women, including directing women to other states where it is still legal to terminate their pregnancies.
“We have been here before, and we’ll continue serving our patients however we legally can and fighting for their right to safe, compassionate abortion care,” Miller said.
Heather Gardner, executive director of the antiabortion Central Texas Coalition for Life, said her organization will start distributing fliers explaining the ban to abortion clinics in that part of the state. Although Gardner said she does not expect to file lawsuits herself to enforce the ban, she said her organization would advise people who come to her to report any illegal abortions.
“We would do what we could to see what legal action could be taken,” Gardner said. “We wouldn’t want to let that go, because they need to be held accountable.”
Kitchener reported from Austin, Wax-Thibodeaux from Lubbock, Tex., and Barnes and Marimow from Washington.
