Press Statement  AG Healey Issues Statement in Response to U.S. Supreme Court Rulings on Texas Abortion Law

BOSTON — Attorney General Maura Healey issued the following statement in response to rulings today from the U.S. Supreme Court that leave Texas’s unconstitutional six-week abortion ban, Senate Bill 8 (S.B. 8), in place for now, but allow abortion providers’ challenge to the law to go forward in part, against state licensing officials. 

“For three months, Texans have been forced to travel thousands of miles to access their constitutional right to abortion or be forced into pregnancy. While the Court today allowed the providers’ case against this law to move forward against certain defendants, it doesn’t change the fact that Texans need relief now. My team and attorneys general from around the country stand in solidarity with patients, families, and providers in Texas and will continue to defend their rights to basic health care and equality.”

BACKGROUND:

In October, AG Healey led a coalition of 24 attorneys general in filing an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court, asking it to block the abortion ban from going into effect by lifting the Fifth Circuit’s stay of the district court’s preliminary injunction in the United States v. Texas case, and also asking the Court to allow the United States’ challenge, as well as the challenge brought by providers in Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson, to proceed. Today, the Court declined to issue any ruling on the merits of the United States’ challenge, instead sending the case back to the lower courts; denied the United States’ request to lift the stay of the preliminary injunction against the law; and held that the plaintiffs in the Whole Woman’s Health case could maintain their challenge only against state licensing officials, and not against other defendants that play a role in carrying out Texas’s unconstitutional 6-week ban.

In September, AG Healey led a coalition of 24 attorneys general in filing an amicus brief in support of the U.S. Department of Justice’s challenge to S.B. 8. The brief specifically supported the DOJ’s motion for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction of the law, which went into effect on September 1.