Abortion activists and several prominent journalists criticized the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday for not fulfilling their expectations with a ruling about the Texas heartbeat law.
Abortion activists had hoped that Monday would be the day when the U.S. Supreme Court would issue a ruling about the pro-life legislation. However, the court published only one opinion for the day, an unrelated case about water rights, according to SCOTUS Blog.
That means the Texas law will remain in effect and continue to save unborn babies’ lives.
Steven Mazie, a journalist at The Economist, accused the high court of “faking out” Americans by not ruling on the abortion case Monday.
“SCOTUS faked us all out: no TX abortion ruling today,” Mazie wrote on Twitter.
But the Supreme Court justices did not give any indication about whey they may rule on the case. It was journalists and other court watchers who anticipated that the high court might issue an opinion on the Texas case based on a generic notice on the court website stating that it would publish at least one opinion Monday. The Supreme Court hears many cases and the notice did not give any indication about what case or cases it planned to rule on Monday.
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That did not stop CNN from making a similar claim, beginning its story with, “Women in Texas who have been blocked from exercising their constitutional right to obtain an abortion for almost three months had reason to expect Monday that the Supreme Court was poised to rule on challenges to the state restrictions.”
Again, the Supreme Court did not give any indication that it planned to rule on the Texas case Monday.
Abortion activists slammed the high court as well and used the inaction to call for court packing, according to Fox News.
“If we still believed that the Supreme Court actually wanted to protect our constitutional rights that went out the window (once again) this am,” said MiQuel Davies, who works with the pro-abortion group Physicians for Reproductive Health. “There is a constitutional right to abortion. S.B.8 is unconstitutional and cruel. I can’t.”
Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion chain, also criticized the court for allowing “cruelty” to continue in Texas. In other words, allowing the state to continue to protect unborn babies from being killed in abortions.
“Texas’s abortion ban was designed to sow chaos & confusion: It cruelly forces patients to carry a pregnancy against their will or travel hundreds of miles for an abortion,” Planned Parenthood responded on Twitter. “For 80+ days this has been the reality for TX patients. Every day without a SCOTUS decision is devastating.”
Demand Justice, a leftist pro-abortion, pro-court packing group, said the inaction Monday should motivate Americans to pack the high court with judges who support abortion on demand.
“The Supreme Court has allowed Texas’s abhorrent anti-abortion law to remain in effect for 83 days,” Demand Justice wrote on Twitter. “We cannot keep waiting for this Court to act in the interests of the American people – it’s time to #ExpandTheCourt.”
Vox senior correspondent Ian Millhiser also slammed the high court for not ruling, writing: “LOLZ at all of us for thinking that the Supreme Court might do something sensible in an abortion case today. The Supreme Court is bad, y’all.”
Twice, the Supreme Court refused to block enforcement of the unique, life-saving law, which went into effect on Sept. 1. Then, on Nov. 1, the justices heard arguments from the abortion industry and the Biden administration urging them for a third time to block the Texas law.
However, the court has not issued a ruling yet, and no one knows when they will. CNN anchor Jim Sciutto predicted that the Supreme Court will not issue any more rulings until after the Thanksgiving holiday.
Every day that the law is in effect unborn babies are being spared from abortions. The legislation, Senate Bill 8, prohibits abortions once an unborn baby’s heartbeat is detectable, about six weeks of pregnancy. Pro-life leaders estimate the law is saving as many as 100 unborn babies from abortion every day.
Texas is the first state to be allowed to enforce a heartbeat law because of a unique provision that allows private individuals to enforce the law by filing lawsuits against abortionists and others who help them abort unborn babies with beating hearts.
This unique provision and a legal technicality about the parties involved in the lawsuits are the issues that the Supreme Court currently is considering.
Here’s more from the AP:
The Supreme Court is weighing complex issues in two challenges brought by abortion providers in Texas and the Biden administration. Those issues include who, if anyone, can sue over the law in federal court, the typical route for challenges to abortion restrictions, and whom to target with a court order that ostensibly tries to block the law.
Under Supreme Court precedents, it’s not clear whether a federal court can restrain the actions of state court judges who would hear suits filed against abortion providers, court clerks who would be charged with accepting the filings or anyone who might some day want to sue.
People who sue typically have to target others who already have caused them harm, not those who might one day do so and not court officials who are just doing their jobs by docketing and adjudicating the cases.
Texas officials argue that the Supreme Court must reject the Biden administration’s request for a temporary injunction because the Texas government is not charged with enforcing the abortion ban. The law allows private citizens to enforce the law by suing abortionists and those who assist in killing unborn babies.
Typically, state governments enforce pro-life laws and, when the laws are challenged, judges can block the states from enforcing them through a temporary injunction. However, the Texas law leaves enforcement up to individual people.
Attorneys for Texas said Biden’s Department of Justice is being unfair by asking the court to block “absent third parties” from enforcing the law “without letting them be heard.”
For the 80 days that the law has been in effect, babies’ lives have been spared from abortion. While abortion activists say some women are traveling to other states for abortions, they admit that others are having their babies instead.
Texas abortion facilities reported a huge drop in abortion numbers during the first 30 days when the pro-life law was in effect, according to research from the University of Texas at Austin. Abortion facilities reported 2,164 abortions in September 2021, down from 4,313 in September 2020, according to the research. That equates to 2,149 babies’ lives.
The Texas law is saving as many as 100 babies from abortion every day and has the potential to save tens of thousands more. In 2020, about 54,000 unborn babies were aborted in Texas, and about 85 percent happened after six weeks of pregnancy, according to state health statistics.
