AG HEALEY LEADS COALITION IN SUPPORT OF DOJ’S LAWSUIT AGAINST TEXAS ABORTION BAN
Amicus Brief Filed
in Federal District Court Rejects Texas Law Banning Abortions After Six Weeks
BOSTON – Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey today led a
coalition of 24 attorneys general in filing an amicus brief in support of the
U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) challenge to Texas’ new unconstitutional
six-week ban on abortions. The brief specifically supports DOJ’s motion for a
temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction of the law, which went
into effect earlier this month.
“This flagrantly unconstitutional law unleashes bounty-hunting vigilantes to
get in the way of someone’s right to basic healthcare,” AG Healey said. “As
leaders in the fight to preserve healthcare and access to abortion, we will
protect reproductive rights for every person in our states, and we stand with
the Department of Justice in fighting to stop this dangerous law from putting
the lives of our residents at risk.”
The brief, filed today in
the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas, argues that
by banning nearly all pre-viability abortions within Texas’s borders, the law,
Senate Bill 8 (S.B. 8), violates nearly 50 years of Supreme Court precedent
affirming the constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy before viability.
The brief further contends that the Texas Legislature sought to circumvent
prior Supreme Court rulings and to prevent judicial review of the law by
delegating enforcement authority to private individuals instead of the
government and, as such, S.B. 8 is an “unprecedented attack on our
constitutional order” and the rule of law.
The coalition contends that the clear purpose of S.B. 8’s private enforcement
scheme is to produce an “across-the-board ban on constitutionally protected
activity,” and that the private enforcement mechanism does not shield Texas’s
unconstitutional law from judicial review. The brief describes how Texas
created a structure within its state court system that requires courts to
provide monetary and injunctive relief to claimants who bring cases against
providers and those who “aid or abet” such constitutionally protected care. The
coalition argues that the federal district court should not allow Texas to
render the constitutionally protected rights recognized in Roe v. Wade
legally void through the law’s transparent scheme.
The brief describes how the law is already
significantly impacting abortion provider clinics in Texas and beyond,
including in amici states. Clinics in nearby states are already reporting a
rise in calls from Texas patients seeking abortions, and one day after the law
went into effect, all abortion clinics in New Mexico were reportedly booked for
weeks. This rise in abortion caseloads in other states from Texas patients and
the increase in needed travel for patients could result in many people –
especially low-income people – being unable to receive the care they need. The
law also threatens the many people who help patients in Texas obtain access to
an abortion by creating a more than $10,000 potential liability for anyone who
so much as gives a patient a ride to an abortion provider or otherwise “aids or
abets” an abortion. The amici states, the brief explains, are committed to
shielding their residents and clinicians from these harms when they help a patient
in Texas obtain constitutionally protected care.
Finally, the brief argues that it is essential for the federal district court
to enjoin the law immediately to stop the irreparable harm that S.B. 8 is
inflicting on people in Texas and across the country including the amici
states. Forcing a patient to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term, the brief
argues, will lead to negative health and socioeconomic consequences, including
placing people who are forced to carry a pregnancy to term at greater risk of
life-threatening illnesses and harming their ability to maintain full-time
employment.
Joining AG Healey in filing the 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 Assistant Attorney General Amanda Hainsworth and Division Chief Abigail Taylor, both of AG Healey’s Civil Rights Division, as well as State Solicitor Bessie Dewar.
