The federal Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Louisiana, has remanded to the Supreme Court of Texas an appeal of a life-saving law that went into effect in the Lone Star State on September 1 (S.B. 8). The bill has disruptive potential, prohibiting abortion when the heartbeat is perceptible; that is, around the sixth week of the baby’s life.
The appeal had been filed in December by a number of facilities in Texas where abortions are performed. For the issue to go back to the Texas Supreme Court was just what Texas pro-lifers were hoping for.
The decision, made by a three-judge panel on a 2-1 vote, is a victory for the pro-life movement in Texas. The pro-abortion front hoped that the case might return to a lower court like the one that was effectively blocked from taking effect last September.
But in November, the U.S. Supreme Court did not intervene to block S.B. 8, although it did allow abortion providers in that state to pursue appeals through the ordinary process; first turning to lower federal courts. And that could mean only one thing: the game is far from over, and the breach that Texas has opened in US pro-abortion conformity is widening.
The wall of death could actually come down.
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