The Supreme Court has now returned the extremely controversial Texas abortion ban to a federal appeals court.
The ping-pong referral of the case has landed the law in the federal appeals court twice before. Both times, the court allowed the sweeping ban to remain as law.
Its decision to refer the case back to the federal appeals court therefore circumvents a district judge, which sought to block the ban.
The top court signed on Thursday an order to grant the courts to weigh in on the act quickly. Abortion clinics have been asking for the Texan law to be reviewed in court for months. However, the abortion clinics had hoped that the case would be sent to the district judge, U.S. Judge Robert Pitman, who had briefly blocked the enforcement of the law while lawsuits continued through the system.
Pitman had ordered the law to be paused in early October. The appeals court quickly overturned this only two days later.
The state of Texas has already stated that it plans to keep the case at the appeals court level for the foreseeable future, in an effort to keep enforcing the law.
The law, known as S.B. 8, has now been in effect for three months. It bans all abortions at approximately the six week mark, which is before the majority of women know they are pregnant, therefore effectively banning nearly all abortions in the state. It specifically makes no exceptions for rape or incest. The enforcement of the law is also under contention, as it bypasses state officials and the typical enforcers of laws, and instead allows private citizens to sue anyone who assists in an abortion.
Multiple abortion cases have landed in the Supreme Court’s current session, including one from Mississippi that aims to limit abortion rights and could ultimately overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade precedent.
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