Texas Supreme Court Begins Hearing Oral Arguments on Heartbeat Abortion Ban

Calvin Freiburger : Feb 25, 2022
LifeSiteNews.com

"At the Texas Supreme Court, the US Supreme Court or any court in between; we are confident the Texas Heartbeat Law will prevail. This historic law has saved approximately 25,000 babies' lives to date, and Texas continues on its way to being an abortion-free state." -Texas Values president and attorney Jonathan Saenz

[LifeSiteNews.com] Texas' ban on aborting babies with detectable heartbeats is now being reviewed by the Lone Star State's highest court, months after the US Supreme Court allowed it to remain in effect while lower courts debated its constitutional merits. (Screengrab image)

Senate Bill 8, the Texas Heartbeat Act, requires abortionists abortionists to screen for a preborn baby's heartbeat and prohibits abortion if a heartbeat can be heard (generally as early as six weeks), with exceptions only for medical emergencies.

Its unique enforcement mechanism, which "exclusively" empowers private citizens to bring civil suits against abortionists instead of state prosecutions, has been credited for the Supreme Court's September decision not to block it from taking effect. State health data indicates that Texas abortions dropped by 60% in just SB8's first month on the books, thanks to it inducing abortion chains Planned Parenthood and Whole Woman's Health to temporarily suspend abortions past six weeks in the state.

Oral arguments last November indicated that a majority of Supreme Court justices were at least somewhat sympathetic to the state-level challenges but less so to the federal one, and so the Court ultimately dismissed the federal challenge while ruling that pre-enforcement challenges to the law at the state level were permissible against some named defendants but not others.

Now, oral arguments have begun over Whole Woman's Health v. Jackson at the Texas Supreme Court, which the group Texas Values explains will "answer the remaining question of whether the Heartbeat Law can be enforced by a small, limited number of state licensing officials... Subscribe for free to Breaking Christian News here

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