Andrew Chung and Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters] – Monday’s arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court are set for President Joe Biden’s and pro-life providers against a Texas law. The Texas law imposes a nearly total ban on abortion, and permits private citizens to enforce it. This is a new design which has protected it from being blocked in lower courts.

Abortion rights in the United States are hanging in the balance as the nine justices take up the dispute over the Texas law barring abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy before hearing arguments on Dec. 1 https://www.reuters.com/article/legal-us-usa-court-abortion-instant/u-s-supreme-court-takes-up-case-that-could-limit-abortion-rights-idUSKCN2CY1P9 over the legality of a Mississippi measure prohibiting the procedure after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

Unusual speed was used to reach the Supreme Court in Texas for resolution of the Texas dispute. The justices agreed to take up https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-supreme-court-hear-challenge-texas-abortion-ban-2021-10-22 the matter on Oct. 22, bypassing lower courts that are considering the challenges. The Supreme Court on a 5-4 vote on Sept. 1 declined to halt the law https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/texas-six-week-abortion-ban-takes-effect-2021-09-01.

These challenges will decide whether or not federal courts are able to hear suits aimed at striking the Texas law down and whether or not the U.S. government can even sue to stop it. Because of its unique design, federal courts cannot hear the case. This could lead to the creation of similar laws in other states or curtail access to abortion in other areas of the country.

These laws, which were passed in Texas and Mississippi, are just a few of the Republican-backed restrictions on abortion that have been implemented at state level over recent years. The Mississippi law was blocked in lower courts.

Opponents of abortion hope that the Supreme Court’s 6-3 conservative majority will reverse the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which recognized a woman’s constitutional right in the Constitution to end a pregnancy, and make the procedure legalized nationwide.

Separate oral arguments will be heard by the Supreme Court, lasting several hours.

It is illegal to have an abortion when many women don’t know they are pregnant. An exception is made for medical emergencies that are documented, but it does not apply to pregnancies that result from incest and rape.

Texas’s law removes state officials from the enforcement of abortion laws. Instead, private citizens can sue those who assist or perform an abortion on a woman after the detection of cardiac activity in her embryo.

This made it harder to sue the state directly, and helped protect the law from being blocked immediately. A minimum of $10,000 can be given to individuals who bring successful cases under this law. Critics claim that this provision allows people to act as “anti-abortion bounty hunter”, a notion its supporters reject.

Biden’s administration and the abortion providers strongly disagree with this law. They claim it is unconstitutional, and that it has been specifically designed to bypass judicial review.

Texas has the second-most populous state in America, after California which boasts 29 million residents.

New Orleans’ 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit refused to block the law in the case concerning abortion providers and stated that the federal courts do not have the jurisdiction to interfere. On Oct. 6th, a federal judge representing the Biden administration challenged the law and the 5th Circuit swiftly reinstated it.

Mississippi has asked the justices to overturn Roe v. Wade https://www.reuters.com/world/us/mississippi-asks-us-supreme-court-overturn-abortion-rights-landmark-2021-07-22. The Texas attorney general has signaled he also would like to see that ruling overturned https://www.reuters.com/world/us/texas-urges-us-supreme-court-maintain-states-abortion-ban-2021-10-21. Many states had already outlawed abortion before this landmark decision.