The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals late Friday allowed Texas’ near-total abortion ban to again be enforced after freezing a federal judge’s temporary block of the law. The state appealed the order just two days after it was issued.
The 5th Circuit restored enforcement of the law hours after the state requested the court step in. Texas attorneys argued that U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman’s order to temporarily block enforcement of the state’s abortion restrictions — the strictest in the nation — “violates the separation of powers at every turn.”
Texas’ new law has mostly flouted the constitutional right to have an abortion before fetal viability established by Roe v. Wade in 1973 and subsequent rulings. That’s because it leaves enforcement of the new restrictions not to state officials but instead to private citizens filing lawsuits through the civil court system against people who perform or assist someone in getting an abortion.
