S.B. 8 was signed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in May, and it went into effect in September. It bans nearly all abortions in Texas by outlawing the procedure after the detection of a fetal heartbeat, which occurs as early as the sixth week of pregnancy.
Rather than task state officials with enforcing the six-week ban, S.B. 8 delegates that power to private citizens, who are empowered to sue, for at least $10,000, anyone who “aids or abets” an abortion.
Critics call that enforcement mechanism a loophole, intended to avoid responsibility and judicial review. The Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments against the law from the Department of Justice and from a group of abortion providers, both of whom filed legal challenges against Texas officials.
Texas argued that since the abortion law is not enforced by the state, they are not the ones who should defend it in court. “No state executive official actually enforces [the law],” Texas wrote Wednesday in a 93-page brief to the high court, “making the injunction an improper attempt to enjoin a law rather than a person.”
The Justice Department wrote in its own court brief that “other states are already regarding S.B. 8 as a model” and that “if Texas is right, no decision of this Court is safe.”
The justices on Dec. 1 are set to hear arguments in another case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, taking direct aim at the rulings that have upheld abortion rights for decades.
Court watchers following along on Monday via livestream audio — a novelty of the coronavirus pandemic — will be listening closely for hints about how certain justices, including Chief Justice John Roberts, will approach Roe and Casey in that case and others in the near future.
“I think everyone will be watching the chief justice very closely,” said Jaime Santos, a partner in the Supreme Court and appellate litigation practice at law firm Goodwin.
“Of the conservative justices, he is most inclined to protect the principles of stare decisis” — the adherence to precedent in similar cases — “and most concerned about public perceptions of the Court as a fair and independent body,” Santos said.
The oral arguments over Texas’ law come less than two weeks after the court approved the two cases on a highly accelerated schedule. The rocket-docket proceedings could also lead the justices to issue rulings much more quickly than if the cases were moving at normal speed, Georgetown University business law professor Thomas Cooke told CNBC.
Article source: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/29/supreme-court-to-hear-arguments-in-major-cases-on-abortion-guns-heres-what-to-know.html