Supreme Court Rules on Texas Abortion Case

We told you how the unique Texas law that bans abortions after six weeks or when a heartbeat is detected went to the Supreme Court. The enforcement of this law lays in the hands of private citizens who will be able to sue abortion clinics. We filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court in support of this law and today the Supreme Court issued an opinion on the case.

So, what did the Supreme Court decide? On one end, the Court is allowing the abortion industry to challenge this law preemptively. However, in a major victory, the Supreme Court decided that the Texas abortion ban is still the law in the meantime – saving unborn lives every minute of the day. This could very well be an indicator of how the Court will respond to the huge case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that could overturn Roe v. Wade.

ACLJ Senior Counsel for Global Affairs and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo details in his new article why the Supreme Court must overturn Roe v. Wade, and today he gave his take on the decision for the Texas law:

This is very different, and I think it pertains to how many of the members of the Supreme Court are thinking about the Dobbs case. . . . They are going to allow this law to stay in effect during the time of its litigation. . . . It has real ramifications for those of us who believe that every life is sacred. . . . Even when the Supreme Court makes its decision in Dobbs and even if they overturn Roe, it means that the hard work of protecting the unborn everywhere and always will be right on top of us. So, I hope everyone . . . realizes that work like your organization has been doing for decades – the need to do that work will continue. We want the Supreme Court to get this right and finally overturn Roe after all of these decades. But in the end, we have this responsibility that is bigger. . . . I hope the people of Texas will use this opportunity during this time when the law is in effect to protect the unborn in every way that they can. 

Before there was a shift on the Supreme Court with conservative Justices, this case would have had very little hope. ACLJ Senior Counsel CeCe Heil explained how in the past, the Supreme Court had a huge abortion distortion problem:

That’s exactly what we talk about all of the time with abortion distortion. Which is basically if a law that deals with abortion comes before the Supreme Court, it really doesn’t matter about facts; it really doesn’t matter about procedure; it really doesn’t matter about law; you are going to protect abortion no matter what. We didn’t see that in this case. In fact, we saw the exact opposite. Justice Gorsuch wrote the opinion and he specifically said that this Court can’t disregard limits on the jurisdiction of federal courts. So, they allowed the law to stay in effect, which typically they would never do. But they did allow it to go forward against the Texas medical licensing officials and then also the 14 state court cases that are pending can go forward. But again, we didn’t see abortion distortion, we saw that this Court actually followed the law. They are letting the Texas law stay in place and then they are letting it go to the correct court procedure below.

ACLJ Senior Military Analyst Wes Smith summed up the shift in the view of abortion:

What we are witnessing. . . . we’ve known for several years that culturally more and more Americans are pro-life, and they have real reservations about abortion, it troubles them. . . . Science has taught us a lot. It used to be the issue centered around viability . . . can they survive outside the womb? Now, we know about human life within the womb, about the ability to feel pain, about the heartbeat, and about the development of the human brain in that baby. Science has taught us a lot and because of that we are witnessing . . . not only a cultural change that is pro-life but a legal change so that it becomes a moral issue. And what we are looking at from a legal perspective is the sanctity of all human life. So, what happens, it is not just religious concerns . . . but it is now you have people who are pro-life who have no religious convictions. They are pro-life because of what we have learned, the legal and the cultural shift about abortion, so people who are not religious at all, are turning and saying, “Hey this is wrong; we need to take a pro-life stance.”

This is a new world we are living in when it comes to the pro-life movement. We have remained diligent in our fight and we are starting to see a shift in the courts. We hope many states follow the lead of Texas and that we are able to report on many more of these pro-life victories. Our fight is not over yet. We will look forward to the decision on the Dobbs case that will likely come in June, but we are directly engaging in many other pro-life cases nationwide in the meantime.

Today’s full Sekulow broadcast is complete with even more analysis of the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Texas abortion case

Watch the full broadcast below.

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