Texas’s abortion law will be allowed to continue after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth District granted a “temporary administrative stay” late Friday evening.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton had requested the court earlier Friday to reinstate the law after it was temporarily blocked.
Paxton argued in his letter that the judge who blocked it, U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman, had no authority to do so and requested the court to put a hold on the judge’s order by Oct. 12 at 9 a.m. to prevent it from going into effect.
Pitman, a Barack Obama-appointed judge, argued in his 113-page ruling the abortion law is considered “unconstitutional.”
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Pitman wrote in his ruling that women were “unlawfully prevented from exercising control over their lives in ways that are protected by the Constitution.”
“A person’s right under the Constitution to choose to obtain an abortion prior to fetal viability is well established,” Pitman continues to argue. “Fully aware that depriving its citizens of this right by direct state action would be flagrantly unconstitutional, the State contrived an unprecedented and transparent statutory scheme to do just that.”
Paxton’s office explained on Thursday they disagreed with the court’s decision to ban the abortion law and were taking steps to appeal the judge’s decision, noting Paxton’s priority is to preserve the “sanctity of human life.”
We disagree with the Court’s decision and have already taken steps to immediately appeal it to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
The sanctity of human life is, and will always be, a top priority for me.
— Texas Attorney General (@TXAG) October 7, 2021
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Under TX S.B. 8, abortions are prohibited after a fetal heartbeat is detected, which usually occurs around six weeks. Additionally, under the law, individual citizens would be allowed to file lawsuits against anyone who “aids or abets” the procedure.
In response to the Texas abortion law, President Joe Biden promised to protect women’s abortion rights, stating his administration was “deeply committed to the constitutional right established in Roe v. Wade.”
“The Texas law will significantly impair women’s access to the health care they need, particularly for communities of color and individuals with low incomes,” Biden wrote in a statement. “And, outrageously, it deputizes private citizens to bring lawsuits against anyone who they believe has helped another person get an abortion, which might even include family members, healthcare workers, front desk staff at a healthcare clinic, or strangers with no connection to the individual.”
