By Sabrena Tavernise and Katie Benner
New York Times
WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Wednesday granted the Justice Department’s request to halt enforcement of the recently passed Texas law that bans nearly all abortions in the state while the legal battle over the statute makes its way through the federal courts.
In his 113-page ruling, Robert L. Pitman, a Federal District Court judge in Austin, sided with the Biden administration, which had sued to halt a law that has changed the landscape of the abortion fight and further fueled the national debate over whether abortion will remain legal across the country.
Judge Pitman used sharp language to criticize the law, known as Senate Bill 8, which was drafted to make it difficult to challenge in court by delegating enforcement to private individuals, who can sue anyone who performs abortions or “aids and abets” them.
“From the moment S.B. 8 went into effect, women have been unlawfully prevented from exercising control over their own lives in ways that are protected by the Constitution,” he wrote in his opinion.
“This court will not sanction one more day of this offensive deprivation of such an important right,” he added.
It is not yet clear what effect his decision to pause enforcement of the law will have on women in Texas, who have scrambled to find abortion providers in other parts of the country.
The law’s novel legal approach extends to what happens if it is temporarily suspended: Clinics can be sued retroactively for any abortions they provide while it is blocked. That means penalties could be imposed when the suspension is lifted for abortions that happened while it was in place, keeping clinics in a fraught legal environment.
“S.B. 8 says if an injunction is dismissed, you are still accountable for abortions you did while you were protected by that injunction,” said John Seago, the legislative director for the anti-abortion group Texas Right to Life.
So even though Judge Pitman ruled in favor of the clinics, they expressed hesitation on Wednesday night about when they might resume full activity.
In his 113-page ruling, Robert L. Pitman, a Federal District Court judge in Austin, sided with the Biden administration, which had sued to halt a law that has changed the landscape of the abortion fight and further fueled the national debate over whether abortion will remain legal across the country.
Judge Pitman used sharp language to criticize the law, known as Senate Bill 8, which was drafted to make it difficult to challenge in court by delegating enforcement to private individuals, who can sue anyone who performs abortions or “aids and abets” them.
“From the moment S.B. 8 went into effect, women have been unlawfully prevented from exercising control over their own lives in ways that are protected by the Constitution,” he wrote in his opinion.
“This court will not sanction one more day of this offensive deprivation of such an important right,” he added.
It is not yet clear what effect his decision to pause enforcement of the law will have on women in Texas, who have scrambled to find abortion providers in other parts of the country.
The law’s novel legal approach extends to what happens if it is temporarily suspended: Clinics can be sued retroactively for any abortions they provide while it is blocked. That means penalties could be imposed when the suspension is lifted for abortions that happened while it was in place, keeping clinics in a fraught legal environment.
“S.B. 8 says if an injunction is dismissed, you are still accountable for abortions you did while you were protected by that injunction,” said John Seago, the legislative director for the anti-abortion group Texas Right to Life.
So even though Judge Pitman ruled in favor of the clinics, they expressed hesitation on Wednesday night about when they might resume full activity.
8 comments:
Need McHale back on these stories. You and other bloggers are not writers, Montoya.
Your stuff is now predictable.
This is the major change that needs to be challenged, modern science now knows exactly to the point where there is a heart beat, meaning their is a life at stake. That new life didn't ask to be torture, no matter what the consequences were at the time of conception. That unborn life is challenging the much older so called mother. These so called medical experts who are performing these abortions know exactly that every time they perform an abortion on a fetus that is way past the six weeks they are killing SOMEONE, not just a sperm. The Roe v. Wade was in the 1973's, allowed up to 25 weeks. (the fetus is almost a teenager in the womb), Pregnancy is detected mush earlier in todays modern technology. If a woman does not remember who she F__Ked six weeks ago or whether she used protection during the encounter, that in fact is her constitutional right, but to kill the results of such ignorance is unforgivable. This is my opinion
Save a woman. Castrate a penis.
Your utter ignorance is astounding as is your ugly misogynistic mentality, which speaks volumes about your disgusting loathsome character. It's good that your opinion is irrelevant.
The fastest way to stop unwanted pregnancies is for males to get vasectomies at puberty or keep their pants zipped. What? Does that offend your male senses? Too bad. You offend all free thinking women by your willingness to force women to breed just to satisfy your low opinion of women.
You know nothing about women's reproductive system nor science, etc.
Women are not property of a state nor religious zealots. Get over yourself.
Educate yourself so you don't sound like a complete jackass. https://www.livescience.com/65501-fetal-heartbeat-at-6-weeks-explained.html
"So far this year, 11 states have enacted 90 laws meant to restrict abortion — the most in a single year since the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling.
Now, lawmakers in nine U.S. states have passed laws banning abortions when a fetal heartbeat can be detected, or at six weeks of pregnancy, according to data from the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit organization for sexual and reproductive health research and advocacy.
But what exactly do we mean when we talk about a "fetal heartbeat" at six weeks of pregnancy? Although some people might picture a heart-shaped organ beating inside a fetus, this is not the case.
Rather, at six weeks of pregnancy, an ultrasound can detect "a little flutter in the area that will become the future heart of the baby," said Dr. Saima Aftab, medical director of the Fetal Care Center at Nicklaus Children's Hospital in Miami. This flutter happens because the group of cells that will become the future "pacemaker" of the heart gain the capacity to fire electrical signals, she said.
But the heart is far from fully formed at this stage, and the "beat" isn't audible; if doctors put a stethoscope up to a woman's belly this early on in her pregnancy, they would not hear a heartbeat, Aftab told Live Science. (What's more, it isn't until the eighth week of pregnancy that the baby is called a fetus; prior to that, it's still considered an embryo, according to the Cleveland Clinic.)
It's been only in the last few decades that doctors have even been able to detect this flutter at six weeks, thanks to the use of more-sophisticated ultrasound technologies, Aftab said. Previously, the technology wasn't advanced enough to detect the flutter that early on in pregnancy.
Although a lot of weight seems to be put on the detection of this flutter, "by no means does it translate to viability of the heart" or viability of the pregnancy, Aftab said."~ excerpt
Anonymous Anonymous said...
This is the major change that needs to be challenged, modern science now knows exactly to the point where there is a heart beat, meaning their is a life at stake. That new life didn't ask to be torture, no matter what the consequences were at the time of conception. That unborn life is challenging the much older so called mother. These so called medical experts who are performing these abortions know exactly that every time they perform an abortion on a fetus that is way past the six weeks they are killing SOMEONE, not just a sperm. The Roe v. Wade was in the 1973's, allowed up to 25 weeks. (the fetus is almost a teenager in the womb), Pregnancy is detected much earlier in todays modern technology.
----------------
If a woman does not remember who she F__Ked six weeks ago or whether she used protection during the encounter, that in fact is her constitutional right, but to kill the results of such ignorance is unforgivable. This is my opinion
October 7, 2021 at 10:35 AM
@10:35
Your logic is astounding. What an uneducated motherfucker you must be, wey.
A fetus in the womb is a teenager?
Yo mama must've been fucked in a backseat.
9:06am dumbass.
Keep reading El Rrun. You are Predictable.
End the world and stop the childish arguments. MORONS all
The FBI should investigate Brownsville Police Chief Felix Sauceda from his relationship with the Brownsville Police Union President that had a close connection with a subject that was arrested by the Fed's for Terrorist activity.
But yet the Brownsville Police Chief Felix Sauceda not only knew of the involvement he even got involved With a business venture with the Union President. Then gave him a promotion and assigned him to the gym Monday-Friday 8am-4pm...what a waste of tax payer money!!!
Then gives a female who was caught taking her family in a unmarked City vehicle for a out of town trip to Austin...
Then gave her the same assignment in the gym..
Chief Felix Sauceda's long time and close friend and Compare Joe Salinas arrested by the DEA.. Chief Sauceda was frequently seen having lunch with Joe Salinas on and off duty.
Hiring Officers that had been fired, promoting some of the fired officers that have been arrested for DWI assigning one Officer that had been Arrested for DWI to INTERNAL Affairs!!!
RE HIRING officers that have been arrested for Theft and Lying...
Giving out AWARDS to OFFICERS that have USEd FORCE against Suspects!
The Improprieties go on and on...
Yet the City Manager Noe Bernal does absolutely nothing...
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