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The Department of Justice Has Filed a Lawsuit to Overturn Texas' Six-Week Abortion Restriction

The Department of Justice Has Filed a Lawsuit to Overturn Texas' Six-Week Abortion Restriction

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has filed a lawsuit contesting Senate Bill (SB8), a contentious Texas law that prohibits all abortions after six weeks and allows citizens to report those who help or intend to help persons who want to stop their pregnancies.

According to the complaint, the legislation violates the Supremacy Clause since it does not include an exemption for situations of rape and incest. According to the Department of Justice, this limitation might obstruct government employees' ability to execute their job of facilitating abortions in some circumstances.

Moreover, because of the impact this restriction will have on interstate trade, the DOJ also stated that the statute controls areas that are pre-empted by federal government power. Calls from out of state are already increasing at abortion clinics in surrounding states.

SB8 also violates the Fourteenth Amendment, according to the Department of Justice, since it violates a person's right to an abortion before a foetus can live outside the mother's womb, as established in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

“The legislation involves an unprecedented plan to, in the Chief Justice's words, ‘insulate the State from responsibility,'” said Attorney General Merrick Garland. The law enables private individuals to enforce the law rather than state employees, which implies that there will be considerably fewer legal challenges to the bill's unconstitutionality.

Finally, the United States Supreme Court declined to issue an injunction to prevent the law's passage, which took effect on September 1. A dissent was written by Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, Breyer, and Chief Justice Roberts. Sotomayor and Roberts criticized the state's first-of-its-kind statutory framework, which deputizes Texans to execute the law.