Texas Miscarriage Law 2021
On September 3, 2021, a Travis County judge granted three Texas Planned Parenthood affiliates an injunction against Texas Right to Life, with an injunction scheduled for September 13. The ruling temporarily prevents the anti-abortion group and affiliates from suing them under the law. [107] Another judge subsequently signed an agreed-upon injunction in the same case. [108] [109] District Judge Robert L. Pitman, who also presided over WWH v. The Jackson case issued an injunction on October 6, 2021, blocking enforcement and ruling that the U.S. government had the authority to challenge the Texas law. [127] Texas signed an executive order on September 8. In October 2021, he appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit,[128][129] and in a per curiam decision that day, the Fifth Circuit stayed Pitman`s order “until the court has considered the urgent request.” [130] On October 14, 2021, the Petitions Committee granted the state`s and the three allied interveners` requests to suspend the emergency in a brief order referring only to the SCOTUS and Fifth Circuit`s reasons in the pending case WWH v. Jackson. [131] They also ordered that the appeal on the merits be filed jointly and expeditiously by the same Fifth Circuit panel that will hear the hearing in WWH v. Jackson. Before the new law went into effect, a group of abortion providers led by Whole Woman`s Health (WWH) filed a lawsuit to suspend the law on September 1, 2021.
Their lawsuit included a state district court judge and its clerk as representative defendants of all state judges and employees serving Heartbeat claims, in addition to other state officials, including Attorney General Ken Paxton and an individual who had publicly stated his intention to take legal action against an abortion provider once SB 8 entered in force. Abortion clinics questioned the sovereign immunity part of the law, stating that since judges and employees are involved in the application of SB 8, they can be defendants in court challenges because of the Young doctrine ex parte. In late August 2021, District Judge Robert L. Pitman dismissed a motion to dismiss the case and scheduled a hearing on the injunction sought by the plaintiffs. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit arranged for that court to stay the district court proceedings because the state`s defendants were likely immune from prosecution while the case against the individual was pending. [110] The plaintiffs filed an urgent petition with the Supreme Court on August 30, 2021, to block the law`s coming into force. [111] Late on September 1, 2021, nearly 24 hours after the law went into effect, the Supreme Court dismissed the request in an unsigned order,[112] although four judges wrote or accepted dissenting opinions stating that they had granted the injunction pending legal evaluation. The majority opinion on the motion noted that the denial of immediate legal assistance does not preclude further legal challenges in lower federal or Texas state courts. [113] [114] But the Wellers and 28 million other Texans had already been living under a de facto abortion ban for eight months, since September 2021. Second, a new state law bans all abortions after embryonic or fetal cardiac activity is detected — usually in the sixth week of pregnancy. Since then, thousands of women have left Texas for abortions in other states.
“The challenge is that treating an abortion and treating a miscarriage are exactly the same,” said Dr. Sarah Prager, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Washington in Seattle and an expert on early pregnancy loss. Tribe proposed ways to combat the effects of the Texas Heartbeat Act to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). In a commentary published on 5. In September 2021, Tribe called on the Justice Department to prosecute anyone who sues an abortion provider under sections 241 or 242 of the federal penal code, which criminalize the deprivation of constitutional rights. [100] [101] Tribe and Risenberg also proposed using a “civil parallel to the Ku Klux Klan Act” of 1871 to discourage individuals from suing abortion providers who violated the Texas Heartbeat Act,[101] and recommended that the U.S. Attorney General prosecute and prosecute private parties under the law for disenfranchisement under the law. [102] Both men also cited the precedent of Larkin v. Grendel`s Den, Inc.[103] as an argument against the constitutionality of delegating certain government decisions to private parties. The DOJ has yet to respond to any of Tribe`s proposals.
John Gibson, CEO of video game developer/publisher Tripwire Interactive, tweeted in support of the law and the Supreme Court`s decision not to block his app on September 4, 2021. Over the next few days, video game journalists, other developers, and members of the gaming community expressed outrage at the tweet, prompting Gibson to resign as CEO on September 6, 2021, and Tripwire to distance itself from Gibson`s statement. [155] On December 9, 2021, Justice Peeples granted part of the declaratory action sought by the plaintiffs, but did not issue a permanent injunction, leaving this issue to the merits of the case. [144] Texas Right to Life and its Legislative Director immediately appealed the dismissal of their motion to dismiss, resulting in a stay of subsequent proceedings before the trial court until the injunction was issued. The business style for MDL cases is Van Stean v. Texas Right to Life, No. 03-21-00650-CV before the Third Court of Appeals and No. D-1-GN-21-004179 in Travis County District Court.
Last updated: Dec.
