A federal court on Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit challenging a provision of the Texas anti-abortion law that was signed last year.
“Having received the ruling of the Texas Supreme Court that named official defendants may not enforce the provisions of the Texas Heartbeat Act … this court REMANDS the case with instructions to dismiss all challenges to the private enforcement provisions of the statute and to consider whether plaintiffs have standing to challenge,” said the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in its ruling.
The law, known as Senate Bill 8, was signed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott last May. It went into effect in September 2021 and several other states have moved to pass similar measures.
Kim Schwartz, a spokeswoman for pro-life group Texas Right to Life, praised the court ruling on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, a former Texas state senator, Wendy Davis, a Democrat, filed a lawsuit against the law and claimed it’s “blatantly unconstitutional.”
“S.B. 8 seeks not only to strip Texans of their fundamental right to make decisions about their pregnancies, based on their individual circumstances and religious beliefs, but also to make a mockery of the federal courts,” she wrote in a legal challenge earlier this month.
She further argued that Texas is in “ brazen defiance of the rule of law” and should “restore the ability of abortion funds and their associates to fully serve Texas abortion patients.”
