Texas: The Supreme Court of Texas on Friday allowed the Republican-led states to enforce its 1925 law banning abortion, reversing the decision of a district judge.
The decision was the latest in a series of legal battles across the country following the Supreme Court’s decision on June 24 to overturn Roe v. Wade, a nearly half-century-old ruling that had established a constitutional right to abortion nationwide.
In Texas, that meant a 1925 law written before Roe that had banned abortions and punished those who performed them with possible imprisonment automatically went into effect, said Ken Paxton, the state’s attorney general. Though the law was not enforced after Roe was decided in 1973, it had nevertheless remained on the books.
The July 1 decision “does not permit prosecutors to bring criminal cases against abortion providers, but it exposes anyone who assists in the procurement of an abortion to fines and lawsuits,” The Texas Tribune reported.
Jonathan Covey, policy director for Texas Values, a religious freedom organization, said on July 2 that “We are grateful the Texas Supreme Court blocked this temporary restraining order that clinics were using as an excuse to kill pre-born babies. No matter how hard abortionists try to perpetuate murder, we know that life is a human right.”
Judge Christine Weems in Harris County had granted a temporary restraining order against the law’s enforcement on June 28.
The law punishes performing an abortion with two to 10 years imprisonment.
Texas also adopted a “trigger law”, signed in June 2021, making it illegal for anyone to “knowingly perform, induce, or attempt an abortion,” with exceptions for situations where the life of the mother would be at risk in continuing the pregnancy.
That law will take effect 30 days after the judgment in the Supreme Court case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade and returned the regulation of abortion to the states.
Women who have abortions will not be held liable or penalized under the trigger law. Abortionists could be fined $100,000 for illegal abortions.
The state’s law banning abortion from about six weeks into pregnancy has been enforced since the Dobbs decision.