LOS ANGELES (Audacy) — Calling it “clearly unconstitutional,” the Department of Justice sued Texas Thursday over the state’s new restriction against abortions after the six-week pregnancy mark, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced.
During a press conference Thursday, Garland said the “unprecedented” law, known as Senate Bill 8, intends “to prevent women from exercising their constitutional rights by thwarting judicial review for as long as possible.”
“The United States has the authority and responsibility to ensure that Texas cannot evade its obligations under the Constitution and deprive individuals of their constitutional rights by adopting a statutory scheme designed specifically to evade traditional mechanisms of federal judicial review,” attorneys wrote in their filing in an Austin federal court.
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DOJ lawyers want the court to issue a declaratory judgment and permanent injunction against Texas to block enforcement of the law.
In a 5-to-4 vote last week, the Supreme Court declined to hear arguments regarding the new ban, saying the legal proceedings in lower courts should move forward to determine the law’s merit. The court’s three liberal justices and Chief Justice John Roberts all dissented.
Most clinics in the Lone Star State have shut down entirely.
The Texas law delegates enforcement to private citizens by incentivizing them with $10,000 for each report of a person helping a woman obtain an abortion after the cut-off.
