{"id":264246,"date":"2022-03-11T13:40:52","date_gmt":"2022-03-11T19:40:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=264246"},"modified":"2022-03-13T22:07:09","modified_gmt":"2022-03-14T03:07:09","slug":"texas-supreme-court-ends-lawsuit-heartbeat-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/texas-supreme-court-ends-lawsuit-heartbeat-act\/","title":{"rendered":"PRO-LIFE WIN: Texas Supreme Court effectively ends lawsuit involving Heartbeat Act"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div><p>The Texas Supreme Court announced its unanimous\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.txcourts.gov\/media\/1453763\/220033.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">decision<\/a> on Friday in the case of <em>Whole Woman&#8217;s Health v. Jackson<\/em>. The court ruled that the Texas law does not authorize certain state officials to enforce the Texas Heartbeat Act, which prohibits abortionists from committing an abortion if the preborn child has a detectable heartbeat. This ruling effectively brings the legal challenge of the Act by abortionists at Whole Woman&#8217;s Health to a close.<\/p>\n<p>The court stated that the Heartbeat Act &#8220;does not authorize the state-agency executives to enforce the Act&#8217;s requirements, either directly or indirectly,&#8221; and determined that the Act <em>is enforceable by private civil action<\/em> and that <em>no state official may participate in that action<\/em>. Read the full decision and reasoning <a href=\"https:\/\/www.txcourts.gov\/media\/1453763\/220033.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div class=\"video-container\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/BREAKING?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#BREAKING<\/a>: Texas Supreme Court answers question certified by the Fifth Circuit and unanimously holds that state licensing officials do *not* have the ability to enforce <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/SB8?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#SB8<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The gist: The providers&#39; suit against state defendants is now effectively over:<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Ry9pJPdIYC\">https:\/\/t.co\/Ry9pJPdIYC<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/steve_vladeck\/status\/1502299075760300035?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 11, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/div>\n<p>Whole Woman&#8217;s Health had requested &#8220;a declaration that the Act unconstitutionally restricts their rights and an injunction prohibiting the defendants from enforcing its requirements,&#8221; states the court. Those defendants included the Texas Board of Nursing, the Texas Medical Board, the executive director of the Texas Board of Pharmacy, and the executive commissioner of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, who moved to have the lawsuit dismissed, arguing sovereign immunity and lack of standing. Essentially, they argued that the lawsuit could not stand because the Act does not give them any authority to enforce it either directly or indirectly.<\/p>\n<p>The federal district court as well as the United States Supreme Court disagreed with the defendants and denied dismissal of the case. It was remanded back to the <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/fifth-circuit-texas-heartbeat-act-supreme-court\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Fifth Circuit<\/a>, which asked the specific question of whether or not the defendants [certain state officials] could take action against abortionists, or any individuals, who violate the Heartbeat Act and commit or help to secure an abortion on a preborn child with a detectable heartbeat.<\/p>\n<p>According to attorney <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/steve_vladeck\/status\/1502299075760300035?s=20&amp;t=13hG8U7GGgE2bMca6ZXNjw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Steve Vladeck<\/a>, &#8220;The [abortion] providers&#8217; suit against state defendants is now effectively over.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/liveactionnewsonline\/?ref=br_rs\" 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>The Texas Supreme Court announced its unanimous\u00a0decision on Friday in the case of Whole Woman&#8217;s Health v. Jackson. The court ruled that the Texas law does not authorize certain state officials to enforce the Texas Heartbeat Act, which prohibits abortionists from committing an abortion if the preborn child has a detectable heartbeat. This ruling effectively [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":252796,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[3473,11,9459],"tags":[12025,12383,197,82,16272,16273,5686,10968,12461],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>PRO-LIFE WIN: Texas Supreme Court effectively ends lawsuit involving Heartbeat Act<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Court unanimously determined that the Heartbeat Act is enforceable by private civil action and that no state official may participate in that action.\" \/>\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\/texas-supreme-court-ends-lawsuit-heartbeat-act\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"PRO-LIFE WIN: Texas Supreme Court effectively ends lawsuit involving Heartbeat Act\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Court unanimously determined that the Heartbeat Act is enforceable by private civil action and that no state official may participate in that action.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/texas-supreme-court-ends-lawsuit-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=\"2022-03-11T19:40:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-03-14T03:07:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/GettyImages-1194405229-Texas.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=\"Nancy Flanders\" \/>\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=\"Nancy Flanders\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/texas-supreme-court-ends-lawsuit-heartbeat-act\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/texas-supreme-court-ends-lawsuit-heartbeat-act\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Nancy Flanders\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/d61ca3dd1aacf12635bdf71d75c328ef\"},\"headline\":\"PRO-LIFE WIN: Texas Supreme Court effectively ends lawsuit involving Heartbeat Act\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-03-11T19:40:52+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-03-14T03:07:09+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/texas-supreme-court-ends-lawsuit-heartbeat-act\/\"},\"wordCount\":347,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals\",\"Heartbeat Act\",\"Supreme Court\",\"Texas\",\"texas Board of Nursing\",\"Texas Board of Pharmacy\",\"Texas Health and Human Services Commission\",\"Texas Medical Board\",\"Whole Woman's Health v. 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