The Biden administration’s Department of Justice announced Thursday it will sue the state of Texas for its new abortion law banning the deadly procedure …
The Biden administration’s Department of Justice announced Thursday it will sue the state of Texas for its new abortion law banning the deadly procedure after a heartbeat is detected. «That act is clearly unconstitutional under long-standing Supreme Court precedent,» Attorney General Merrick Garland told reporters at a news conference at the Justice Department. Last week, the Supreme Court, in a narrow 5-4 vote, declined to stay the Texas law 24 hours after it went into effect Sept.2. Pro-life activists view the decision as a pathway to the overturn of precedents set in the Planned Parenthood v. Casey case and the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling. In the past week, clinics across Texas have stopped offering abortions after six weeks or have shut down. Garland cited the Planned Parenthood v. Casey precedent that «regardless of whether exceptions are made for particular circumstances, a state may not prohibit any woman from making the ultimate decision to terminate her pregnancy before viability.» President Biden has condemned the court’s decision, vowing to launch a «whole-of-government» effort in response. «I am directing that Council and the Office of the White House Counsel to launch a whole-of-government effort to respond to this decision, looking specifically to the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Justice to see what steps the federal government can take to ensure that women in Texas have access to safe and legal abortions as protected by Roe, and what legal tools we have to insulate women and providers from the impact of Texas’ bizarre scheme of outsourced enforcement to private parties,» Biden said in a statement.
