Supreme Court to hear two cases on Texas abortion law

by mcardinal

Savannah Hulsey Pointer, FISM News 

 

 

The United States Supreme Court announced Friday that it would hear two cases that challenge the Texas heartbeat bill which outlaws abortions as early as 6 weeks.  The lawsuits claim that the bill is procedurally flawed.

The Court expedited the cases, saying they will hear arguments for both starting on November 1, but refused to put a temporary hold on the law, which would have allowed abortions to pick back up again, in the interim. 

According to a report in Fox News, one of the challenges to the nationally contentious fetal protection act comes from the Biden administration’s Department of Justice, and the other from an organization called Whole Women’s Health. 

As is the case with many appeals, the groups won’t be going at the substance of the issue of abortion or the unborn’s right to life, but will rather question the legal procedure and viability of the law. The Court wrote regarding the case:

[T]he petition is granted limited to the following question: May the United States bring suit in federal court and obtain injunctive or declaratory relief against the State, state court judges, state court clerks, other state officials, or all private parties to prohibit S.B. 8 from being enforced?

In the Whole Women’s Health case, the group will question “whether a State can insulate from federal-court review a law that prohibits the exercise of a constitutional right by delegating to the general public the authority to enforce that prohibition through civil actions.”

This is a critical issue for Christians in America today who believe the words of Jeremiah 1:5 that God knows a person before they are born. Christians saw Texas’ law to protect unborn children from being murdered as a big step in the right direction.

While conservatives and Christians were relieved to hear that that Texas was making progress in protecting the unborn from the atrocities of abortion – which includes infants being burned to death, torn apart, and having their organs sold for research – some more liberal justices on the bench were incensed that the state’s ban on most abortions wasn’t put on hold. 

Justice Sonia Sotomayor said in her partially concurring opinion, according to Fox News, that the ban should have been put on hold: 

The promise of future adjudication offers cold comfort, however, for Texas women seeking abortion care, who are entitled to relief now,” she said. “Because every day the Court fails to grant relief is devastating, both for individual women and for our constitutional system as a whole, I dissent from the Court’s refusal to stay administratively the Fifth Circuit’s order.

“These ruinous effects were foreseeable and intentional,” Sotomayor said, calling the impact of the law “catastrophic”, according to CNBC. “Every day that S.B. 8 remains in effect is a day in which such tactics are rewarded. And every day the scheme succeeds increases the likelihood that it will be adapted to attack other federal constitutional rights,” she wrote.

The hold allowing the execution of untold numbers of unborn children was praised by the legislative director of Texas Right to Life, John Seago, who said that he was surprised at how quickly the nation’s high court was moving on the issue.

“The fact that the court has allowed the law to continue to be in effect is a good sign in our opinion,” he said. “They continue to show judicial restraint, even though the abortion industry continues to ask for them to get involved and to keep the law from saving lives, and so that is a good sign in our opinion.”

The critical issue may decide whether the unborn have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. For Christians it also brings to mind the high calling of Proverbs 31:8-9:

Open thy mouth for the dumb in the cause of all such as are appointed to destruction. Open thy mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy. 

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