U.S. court sends Texas abortion law back to state, dealing blow to opponents

By Paul J. Weber, The Associated Press
January 17, 2022

Texas’ ban on most abortions is likely to stay in effect for the foreseeable future, opponents fighting the law said Monday night, after a federal appeals court ruled against sending the case back to only judge who has ever blocked the restrictions.

The decision by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans means that legal challenges to stop the nation’s most restrictive abortion law next move to the Texas Supreme Court, which is entirely controlled by Republican justices and does not have to act immediately.

Continued: https://globalnews.ca/news/8518713/texas-abortion-state-supreme-court/

17.01.2022

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5th Circuit Court of Appeals

Center for Reproductive Rights

2021 was pivotal year for abortion laws in America

A half century of abortion rights for American women faltered this year.

By Devin Dwyer
28 December 2021

For half a century, American women have had the right to choose to end a pregnancy at any point before a fetus is viable outside the womb. If 2021 saw that freedom start to crumble, 2022 could see it more widely wiped away.

"I think this is the time," said an anti-abortion rights activist from Hattiesburg, Mississippi, who declined to share her name this fall while outside the state’s only remaining abortion clinic in Jackson.

Continued: https://abcnews.go.com/US/2021-pivotal-year-abortion-laws-america/story?id=81860784

The World Is Lifting Abortion Restrictions. Why Is the U.S. Moving Against the Tide?

Dec. 2, 2021
By Mary Fitzgerald

Ms. Fitzgerald is the director of expression at the Open Society Foundations and former editor in chief of the global news site openDemocracy.

The decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the case currently before the Supreme Court which focuses on the question of Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban, is unlikely to hinge on global data or the finer points of international law. And yet a growing cadre of briefing papers, political accords and court filings are co-opting the language of international human rights groups to argue against the basic rights and freedoms that most Americans have enjoyed for decades.

These arguments are worth addressing. They tell us worrisome things both about the health of American democracy and about what could happen if the court reverses Roe v. Wade next year.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/02/opinion/abortion-restrictions-roe-wade-usa.html

Thousands demonstrate at Supreme Court as justices consider historic abortion case

The court heard the most serious challenge to Roe vs. Wade in 30 years.

By Libby Cathey and Sarah Donaldson
1 December 2021

Thousands of protesters gathered outside the Supreme Court of the United States on Wednesday as it heard arguments in the most serious legal challenge to Roe vs. Wade in 30 years, sparking passion on both sides of the heated abortion battle.

More demonstrations were expected later Wednesday in what turned into a dramatic scene of dueling rallies as the court considered the most significant abortion rights case in decades.

Continued: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/thousands-rally-supreme-court-justices-abortion-rights/story?id=81478636

Texas wins bid to temporarily reinstate near-total ban on abortion

Move comes 1 day after abortion providers resumed seeing patients in the state

The Associated Press Posted: Oct 08, 2021

A U.S. federal appeals court Friday night quickly allowed Texas to resume banning most abortions, just one day after clinics began racing to serve patients again for the first time since early September.

A one-page order by the 5th U.S. Court of Appeals reinstated the nation's strictest abortion law, which bans abortions once cardiac activity is detected, usually around six weeks. It makes no exceptions in cases of rape or incest.

Continued: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/texas-abortion-law-reinstated-appeals-court-white-house-1.6206144

Texas’ near-total abortion ban is temporarily blocked by a federal judge, spurring the state to quickly appeal

It wasn't immediately clear how the temporary order may affect access to abortions in the state. The law is constructed in a way that people who violate it could be liable to litigation if enforcement is reinstated.

BY REESE OXNER
OCT. 6, 2021

A federal judge temporarily blocked Texas’ near-total abortion ban Wednesday as part of a lawsuit the Biden administration launched against the state over its new law that bars abortions as early as six weeks of pregnancy.

The state of Texas quickly filed a notice of appeal. The state will almost definitely seek an emergency stay of Pitman's order in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which is known as perhaps the nation’s most conservative appellate court.

Continued: https://www.texastribune.org/2021/10/01/texas-abortion-law-blocked/

Doctor Sued For Violating Texas Abortion Ban Countersues Accusers And Asks Court To Strike Down Law

Alison Durkee, Forbes Staff
Oct 5, 2021

The first Texas doctor to be sued under the state’s new law that bans the vast majority of abortions filed his own lawsuit Tuesday against the three private citizens who brought the litigation, seeking to combine the multiple lawsuits and have the law ruled unconstitutional.

Dr. Alan Braid, backed by the Center for Reproductive Rights, filed the litigation in federal court in Illinois—where one of the three people who sued Braid lives—to resolve the “conflicting” lawsuits against him.

Continued: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2021/10/05/doctor-sued-for-violating-texas-abortion-ban-countersues-accusers-and-asks-court-to-strike-down-law/?sh=4d876f73329a

05.10.2021

Center for Reproductive Rights

Texas Heartbeat Project

Texas Right to Life

Wolfgang P. Hirczy De Mino

A Texas Doctor Says He Defied The Abortion Law, Risking Lawsuits

September 19, 2021
SHARON PRUITT-YOUNG

Texas outlawed abortions past the six-week mark in a law that went into effect on Sept. 1. Dr. Alan Braid, a Texas physician, says he performed one anyway just a few days later.

In an opinion piece for The Washington Post on Saturday, Braid, who's
been practicing for more than 40 years, explained his decision as a matter of
"duty of care." The new law, known as S.B. 8, not only makes performing
an abortion after about six weeks illegal, but makes it so that anyone who aids
anyone else in getting one — by performing the procedure or even by giving them
a ride to the clinic where they have the procedure done — runs the risk of
being sued for at least $10,000.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/2021/09/19/1038717122/a-texas-doctor-says-he-defied-the-abortion-law-risking-lawsuits

Biden Administration Sues Over Barbaric Texas Abortion Law That Would Force a 12-Year-Old to Have her Rapist’s Child

The Justice Department argues that the law is “clearly” unconstitutional and sets a dangerous, chilling precedent.

BY BESS LEVIN
SEPTEMBER 9, 2021

One week after the Supreme Court’s arch conservatives gave the green light to a monstrous Texas law that bans abortion at six weeks with no rape or incest exceptions, and two days after Texas governor Greg Abbott boldly claimed that the “Texas Heartbeat Act” isn’t as vile as it seems because people are effectively given a luxurious two weeks or so after getting pregnant to decide what to do, the Biden administration has sued the Lone Star state, saying the law is unconstitutional and sets an absolutely horrifying precedent. Continued: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/09/justice-department-texas-abortion-lawsuit

Biden slams top court ruling on Texas abortion ban, vows action from federal government

U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-4 to deny emergency injunction on enforcement of abortion ban
The Associated Press
Posted: Sep 02, 2021

U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday lambasted the Supreme Court's decision not to block a new Texas law banning most abortions in the state and directed federal agencies to do what they can to "insulate women and providers" from the impact.

Hours earlier, in the middle of the night, a deeply divided high court allowed the state law to remain in force in the nation's biggest abortion curb since it legalized the procedure nationwide a half-century ago in Roe V. Wade.

Continued: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/texas-abortion-ban-supreme-court-1.6162141