There’s a reason Democrats desperately tried to stop Amy Coney Barrett from replacing Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court.
They knew this day would eventually come.
And Amy Coney Barrett just made one of the Democrats’ worst nightmares come true.
The Supreme Court issued a 5-4 decision last week, with Amy Coney Barrett casting the decisive vote, rejecting a request by abortion providers in Texas to block a new law that allows individuals to file civil lawsuits against abortion providers for terminating pregnancies if six weeks have elapsed since conception.
The abortion lobby was hoping the Supreme Court would “enjoin” lower court judges to stop them from ever hearing a case brought under the new Texas law.
Chief Justice John Roberts once again stabbed conservatives in the back – siding with the Democrat-appointed Justices.
However, the five Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices in the majority rejected the Abortion Lobby’s request, ruling that the abortion providers were unlikely to win on the merits.
“To prevail in an application for a stay or an injunction, an applicant must carry the burden of making a strong showing that it is likely to succeed on the merits, that it will be irreparably injured absent a stay, that the balance of the equities favors it, and that a stay is consistent with the public interest,” the order read.
However, the judges didn’t directly state in the ruling whether or not they believed the Texas law was constitutional.
Instead, they issued the ruling because their power to “enjoin” only allows them to block government officials from enforcing laws and not laws themselves.
“The applicants now before us have raised serious questions regarding the constitutionality of the Texas law at issue. But their application also presents complex and novel antecedent procedural questions on which they have not carried their burden. For example, federal courts enjoy the power to enjoin individuals tasked with enforcing laws, not the laws themselves,” the majority added.
Under Texas law, the defendants, a judge and a law clerk, didn’t issue any type of enforcement that would allow the Supreme Court to intervene, as the Court has never been asked to stop a lawsuit before.
“And it is unclear whether the named defendants in this lawsuit can or will seek to enforce the Texas law against the applicants in a manner that might permit our intervention. The State has represented that neither it nor its executive employees possess the authority to enforce the Texas law either directly or indirectly. Nor is it clear whether, under existing precedent, this Court can issue an injunction against state judges asked to decide a lawsuit under Texas’s law,” the conservative justices concluded.
As the first heartbeat bill like this to go into affect in America, the abortion lobby claims the new law will stop up to 85% of abortions in the United States.
Political Animal News will keep you up-to-date on any new developments in this ongoing story.
