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AUSTIN (Nexstar) – An Austin district judge heard for hours arguments from abortion providers challenging Texas law banning most abortions and could be the first to rule on the law’s constitutionality.
The lawsuit seeks to repeal Senate Law 8 by declaring it unconstitutional. The law allows any private individual, abortion provider, or anyone who helps or contributes to an abortion to sue after cardiac activity is detected. It is now widely viewed as a six-week ban, as it is the earliest cardiac activity that can be detected – a time when most women are unaware that they are pregnant.
Abortion groups also hope the lawsuit will prevent Texas Right to Life, an anti-abortion group, from filing civil suits against them.
Texas Right to Life attorneys argued that the organization was not the right defendant for the lawsuit. John Seago, the group’s legislative director and defendant in the lawsuit, said plaintiffs filing an injunction against his group would not prevent others from suing providers under the law.
“If the judge gives them everything they asked for today, they still say they won’t be back to work as usual,” Seago told Nexstar. “So that means that an injunction against us doesn’t really solve any of your problems.”
Heather Hacker, an attorney representing Seago and Texas Right to Life, argued the same thing to Judge David Peeples.
“There are literally millions of other people who could sue them,” she said. “They are not going to change their behavior because of the facilities granted by this court, so it is basically useless.”
After the law was passed, Texas Right to Life created an online reporting website that allows people to report suspected violations of the law so that groups can file lawsuits against these parties.
“SB 8 creates an incentive for mercenaries to do what the government itself knows it cannot. It literally represents millions of people filing lawsuits without any connection to an underlying injury, ”wrote abortion provider lawyers in case briefings. “The result is a cooling of abortion-related activity and language beyond the point at which cardiac activity is detectable.”
The judge’s possible decision would not completely block the law, but it could make it unconstitutional. If he does, it would prevent Texas Right to Life from suing abortion providers for violating SB 8 and it would affect the course of litigation in other courts.
On Wednesday, Peeples didn’t say exactly when he will have a decision ready but said he plans to rule sooner rather than later.
“It just seems to be in the public interest that we decide this sooner rather than later,” he said.
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https://www.kxan.com/news/texas-politics/texas-district-court-hears-numerous-challenges-to-abortion-law-wednesday/
