(CN) — A coalition of Texas abortion providers urged the Supreme Court again on Thursday to take up their challenge against the state’s new ban on the procedure after about six weeks of pregnancy.
Led by Whole Women’s Health, the group is asking for Supreme Court justices to step in and rule on a key issue in the case — whether a state can hand over enforcement power to private citizens to sue anyone who assists in helping a woman obtain an abortion after six weeks.
In a divided 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court on Sept. 1 denied the clinics’ emergency appeal without a hearing, stunning abortion rights groups and drawing condemnation from President Joe Biden. The case was sent back to the Fifth Circuit, and the Justice Department filed its own lawsuit against the state.
But the Fifth Circuit, viewed as one of the most conservative appeals courts in the country, issued a briefing schedule on Wednesday that will not allow the case to be heard until at least December.
Texas Senate Bill 8 ushered in the most restrictive set of abortion measures in the country after it was allowed to become law, prohibiting the procedure once a fetal heartbeat is detected, usually as early as six weeks.
Over the last 23 days that the law has been in effect, abortion access in the state has screeched to a virtual halt. The clinics say in their 50-page petition that Supreme Court intervention is urgently needed because of the harm to Texans and neighboring states, where large spikes of patients seeking reproductive care has been reported.
“We’re asking the Supreme Court for this expedited appeal because the Fifth Circuit has done nothing to change the dire circumstances on the ground in Texas,” Nancy Northup, who leads the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a statement. “We’re doing everything we can to block this ban and restore abortion access in Texas.”
On Monday, two out-of-state former attorneys filed separate lawsuits against a San Antonio doctor who became the first abortion provider to publicly say he performed an abortion on a patient who was further along than six weeks in open defiance of the law.
The lawsuits are poised to test the constitutionality of the legal twist delegating enforcement power from the state to private individuals. Anti-abortion groups including Texas Right to Life distanced themselves from the lawsuits, saying they did not come from the anti-abortion movement and neither are valid attempts “to save human lives.”
The Supreme Court announced this week that it will hear oral arguments Dec. 1 over the constitutionality of a Mississippi case involving a 15-week ban. A decision is not expected until the end of the court’s next term in June 2022.
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