WASHINGTON, Nov 1 — US Supreme Court justices today appeared to be leaning toward allowing a challenge brought by abortion providers to a Republican-backed law that imposes a near-total ban on the procedure and lets private citizens enforce it. The justices were hearing separate challenges by...
WASHINGTON, Nov 1 — US Supreme Court justices today appeared to be leaning toward allowing a challenge brought by abortion providers to a Republican-backed law that imposes a near-total ban on the procedure and lets private citizens enforce it.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett questioned clinic lawyer Mark Hearron about whether under the unusual structure of the law defendants could ever get a “full airing” of the constitutional claims on the right to abortion. Under the law, abortion providers can bring up the right to an abortion as a defence only after they have been sued.
Kavanaugh also wondered if states could pass similar laws that that could infringe other constitutional rights, including the right to bear arms. A state, for example, could allow for US$1 million in damages against anyone who sells an AR-15 rifle, he said. Some conservative justices, including Justice Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, raised the question of whether anyone would have standing to sue under the Texas law without having a direct injury.
The Texas and Mississippi laws are among a series of Republican-backed abortion restrictions pursued at the state level in recent years. Lower courts blocked the Mississippi law.Abortion opponents hope the Supreme Court, with its 6-3 conservative majority, will roll back abortion rights or even overturn its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that recognised a woman’s constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy and legalised the procedure nationwide.
That feature made it more difficult to directly sue the state, helping shield the law from being immediately blocked. Individual citizens can be awarded a minimum of US$10,000 for bringing successful lawsuits under the law. Critics have said this provision lets people act as anti-abortion bounty hunters.