{"id":256507,"date":"2021-11-01T18:18:18","date_gmt":"2021-11-01T23:18:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=256507"},"modified":"2021-11-01T18:19:20","modified_gmt":"2021-11-01T23:19:20","slug":"supreme-court-oral-arguments-texas-heartbeat-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/supreme-court-oral-arguments-texas-heartbeat-act\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court hears oral arguments regarding Texas Heartbeat Act"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Oral arguments were heard at the Supreme Court Monday morning in two cases pertaining to Texas\u2019s SB 8, popularly known as the Heartbeat Act: <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Whole Woman\u2019s Health v. Jackson<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">United States v. Texas<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. The cases did not directly challenge the constitutionality of the law itself, but, rather, addressed its unique method of enforcement, and whether the United States government can sue the state of Texas in federal court.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Appearing on behalf of Whole Woman\u2019s Health, a group of abortion facilities, Marc A. Hearron <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.supremecourt.gov\/oral_arguments\/argument_transcripts\/2021\/21-463_8758.pdf\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">argued<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that Texas\u2019s law \u201ctransform[ed] the state courts from a forum for the protection of rights into a mechanism for nullifying them,\u201d by \u201cdeliberately prohibit[ing] the exercise of a constitutional right recognized by [the Supreme] Court\u201d and by delegating enforcement to private citizens, thereby evading federal court review. He claimed that the supremacy of federal law was at stake, and that allowing SB 8 to stand would provide a road map to other states for abrogating any Supreme Court decision with which they disagreed. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He argued that intervention by the Court was necessary because of the law\u2019s \u201cchilling effect\u201d on the free exercise of the \u201cright\u201d to abortion; in other words, the prohibitive size of the punitive damages allowed for by SB 8 is a sufficiently strong deterrant that no abortion provider is willing to risk acting as a \u201ctest case\u201d to initiate the judicial process by which the constitutionality of laws is ordinarily tested.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>READ:\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/poll-public-support-texas-heartbeat\/\">Poll shows strong public support for Texas Heartbeat Act, despite media outrage<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These arguments were largely <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.supremecourt.gov\/oral_arguments\/argument_transcripts\/2021\/21-588_omjp.pdf\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">mirrored<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> by Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar on behalf of the federal government. She further contended that the US government has a \u201cmanifest sovereign interest\u201d in suing the state of Texas to redress the \u201cviolation\u201d incurred by SB 8, which she characterized as a \u201ca brazen attack on the coordinate branches of the federal government.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Representing Texas judges, court clerks, and other respondents in the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Whole Woman\u2019s Health<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> case, as well as the state of Texas in <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">United States v. Texas<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, state Solicitor General Judd E. Stone argued that none of the defendants were appropriate, because neither judges, nor court clerks, nor any other Texas official is responsible for enforcing the law. He also contended that the \u201cnovel remedies\u201d being requested by the plaintiffs would have to be created by Congress before they could be adjudicated by the Court. He concluded that, barring such action, the Court had no authority to grant the plaintiffs\u2019 petitions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The idea of abortion as a \u201cright\u201d was not challenged during today\u2019s proceedings \u2014 indeed, it appeared to be implicitly accepted by virtually all participants. Even Justice Neil Gorsuch \u2014 who questioned why so-called abortion rights \u201cget special treatment\u201d rather than \u2018equal enforcement\u2019 \u2014 spoke about abortion within the context of rights. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This issue is likely to be directly questioned when the court hears arguments in <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dobbs v. Jackson Women\u2019s Health Organization<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> next month.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/liveactionnewsonline\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u201cLike\u201d Live Action News on Facebook<\/a>\u00a0for more pro-life news and commentary!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Oral arguments were heard at the Supreme Court Monday morning in two cases pertaining to Texas\u2019s SB 8, popularly known as the Heartbeat Act: Whole Woman\u2019s Health v. Jackson and United States v. Texas. The cases did not directly challenge the constitutionality of the law itself, but, rather, addressed its unique method of enforcement, and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":788,"featured_media":245374,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[15,3473],"tags":[10512,13853,13854,13855,13852,13850,11283,197,13851,12461],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Supreme Court hears oral arguments regarding Texas Heartbeat Act<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The cases did not directly challenge the law&#039;s constitutionality but addressed its unique method of enforcement, and whether the government can sue.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/supreme-court-oral-arguments-texas-heartbeat-act\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Supreme Court hears oral arguments regarding Texas Heartbeat Act\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The cases did not directly challenge the law&#039;s constitutionality but addressed its unique method of enforcement, and whether the government can sue.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/supreme-court-oral-arguments-texas-heartbeat-act\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Live Action News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/liveaction\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-11-01T23:18:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-11-01T23:19:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/GettyImages-1275708808-supreme-court.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"650\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Bettina di Fiore\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@liveaction\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@liveaction\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Bettina di Fiore\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/supreme-court-oral-arguments-texas-heartbeat-act\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/supreme-court-oral-arguments-texas-heartbeat-act\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Bettina di Fiore\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/189f8a60121ec1992ae74917a7134f0f\"},\"headline\":\"Supreme Court hears oral arguments regarding Texas Heartbeat Act\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-11-01T23:18:18+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-11-01T23:19:20+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/supreme-court-oral-arguments-texas-heartbeat-act\/\"},\"wordCount\":509,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"Dobbs v. 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