House Democrats urged the Justice Department to prosecute anyone who tries to sue women who seek abortions.
Democrats and reproductive rights activists pressed the Biden administration on Tuesday to take more aggressive action to stop a Texas law that prohibits abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, even as administration officials and legal experts acknowledged it would be difficult to curtail the law in the coming months. House Democrats, following similar calls over the weekend from a leading liberal legal scholar, pushed Attorney General Merrick B. Garland to use the Justice Department’s powers to prosecute Texas residents now empowered under the law to sue women seeking abortions. “We urge you to take legal action up to and including the criminal prosecution of would-be vigilantes attempting to use the private right of action established by that blatantly unconstitutional law,” the House Judiciary Committee chairman, Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, and 22 other House Democrats wrote in a letter to Mr. Garland. The Justice Department referred reporters seeking a response to the letter back to a statement by Mr. Garland a day earlier, in which he said that law enforcement officials were “urgently” exploring options to challenge the Texas law “in order to protect the constitutional rights of women and other persons, including access to an abortion.” The demands by House Democrats were the latest push from liberals after the Supreme Court decided last week to allow the Texas law to take effect. Instead of using the law enforcement powers of the state, the law gives private citizens the right to sue anyone who helps a woman obtain an abortion. Under the law, those plaintiffs can win $10,000 and recover their legal fees if they win. The law has emerged as the starkest example of how former President Donald J. Trump tipped the balance of the Supreme Court to the right by appointing three conservative justices.
