The Supreme Court on Friday said it will consider legal arguments over the Texas abortion law that is the nation’s most restrictive on Nov. 1, and that the law will remain in effect.
The court granted an expedited review of what is called S. B. 8, which the Biden administration in a filing Friday said “has virtually eliminated abortion in Texas after six weeks of pregnancy.”
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The decision sets up a momentous term for abortion rights at the Supreme Court. The justices on Dec. 1 will consider a Mississippi law that bans most abortions after 15 weeks, far earlier than the court’s precedents currently allow.
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Abortion opponents have urged the court to use that case to loosen precedents that say states may not prohibit abortion before fetal viability, generally thought to be around 22 to 24 weeks. Mississippi and abortion opponents have asked the court to use the case to overturn Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which first established a constitutional right to abortion in 1973 and reaffirmed it in 1992.
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In the Texas case, the court said it will consider the law’s unique enforcement policy, which authorizes individual citizens to sue anyone who helps a woman obtain an abortion after cardiac activity is noted in the embryo, usually about six weeks.
The court did not accept a request from Texas specifically to reconsider Roe and Casey.
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Instead, it limited its inquiry to whether the United States or abortion providers may bring suit in federal court to keep S. B. 8 from being enforced.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor was the lone dissenter in the order. She agreed the court should expedite review of the law, but said it should have blocked it until the case is decided. She was also among those who objected when the court allowed the law to go into effect Sept. 1.
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“Women seeking abortion care in Texas are entitled to relief from this Court now,” Sotomayor wrote. “Because of the Court’s failure to act today, that relief, if it comes, will be too late for many.”
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She said to consider those who became pregnant the day the law went into effect.
“As I write these words, some of those women do not know they are pregnant. When they find out, should they wish to exercise their constitutional right to seek abortion care, they will be unable to do so anywhere in their home State.”
The schedule is extraordinary for the Supreme Court, which normally allows months between accepting a case and scheduling it for argument.