AG HEALEY LEADS EFFORT IN U.S. SUPREME COURT TO STOP UNCONSTITUTIONAL TEXAS ABORTION BAN
Multistate
Amicus Brief Urges the Court to Allow Challenges to Abortion Ban to Go Forward
BOSTON –
Following a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that it will hear two challenges
to Texas’ unconstitutional six-week abortion ban, Senate Bill 8 (S.B. 8),
Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey led a coalition of 24 attorneys
general asking the Court to block the ban from going into effect and allow
challenges to the ban to proceed.
The amicus brief, filed with the
Supreme Court in United States of America v. State of Texas et al. and Whole
Woman’s Health v. Jackson, calls on the Court to rule that challenges
brought by the United States and Texas abortion providers to S.B. 8 can go
forward. Today’s brief argues that Texas should not be allowed to evade
judicial review of its unconstitutional ban by purporting to grant enforcement
authority solely to private bounty-hunters. The brief
further argues that S.B. 8 is blatantly unconstitutional under binding Supreme
Court precedent and is causing significant harm to patients in and outside of
Texas.
“Texas’ unprecedented and blatantly unconstitutional
attempt to end abortion is undermining the rule of law, endangering vulnerable
residents in Texas, and straining healthcare systems in neighboring states,”
said AG Healey. “We urge the Supreme Court to allow these challenges to S.B. 8
to go forward and to restore the constitutional rights of patients in need of
care.”
According to the brief, S.B. 8 represents a “new and
dangerous frontier” when it comes to state legislatures restricting or
eliminating abortion access. As the attorneys general have argued, S.B. 8 not
only bans almost all abortions in Texas in violation of the Supreme Court’s
longstanding precedent, but also attempts to thwart judicial review and
insulate Texas from accountability by purporting to create only a private
enforcement scheme. Under S.B. 8, enforcement power is given to private
citizens who are given the right to act as bounty hunters and sue and collect
$10,000 from anyone who provides an abortion in violation of the ban or those
who “aid or abet” such constitutionally protected care.
While the ban
remains in place pending legal challenges, abortion is completely unavailable
to the many people in Texas who do not discover their pregnancies at the
earliest possible moment. Patients have been forced to travel out of state,
which makes abortion for many people too difficult, too time-intensive, and too
costly. Women are now forced to delay care or carry unwanted pregnancies to
term, resulting in negative health and socioeconomic consequences for both them
and their children. In addition, S.B. 8 forces survivors of rape and incest to
carry their pregnancies to term. The brief also explains how the harms caused
by S.B. 8 are rippling well beyond Texas, as people are forced to seek care in
other states. As a result, clinics in those states are experiencing
overwhelming capacity challenges and residents’ access to care is threatened.
For example, in New Mexico, all abortion clinics were reportedly booked for
weeks just one day after S.B. 8 went into effect. Patients traveling from Texas
have accounted for close to a third of the total abortion patients in New
Mexico since September 1.
Similar to the brief filed by attorneys
general earlier this month in the Supreme Court, today’s filing cites back to
past examples from our Nation’s history, particularly related to some states’
resistance to desegregation, in arguing that the Court should not permit states
to violate constitutional rights through state laws ostensibly enforced only by
private parties. The Court “should not permit Texas to ‘nullif[y] indirectly’
the constitutional rights recognized in Roe and Casey through the
‘evasive scheme’ that it has created in S.B. 8,” the brief argues.
Both cases are now
before the Supreme Court and will be heard on November 1.
Joining AG Healey
in today’s brief are the attorneys general of California, Colorado,
Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine,
Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North
Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington,
and Wisconsin.
This matter is
being handled for Massachusetts by the AG’s Civil Rights Division attorneys
Amanda Hainsworth and Abigail Taylor and State Solicitor Bessie Dewar.
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