AUSTIN, Texas (CN) — In a highly anticipated opinion, the Texas Supreme Court on Friday held that the state’s total abortion ban does allow the procedure to be performed if the pregnancy poses a risk of serious bodily impairment or death.
“Texas law permits a life-saving abortion,” wrote Justice Jane Bland in her 38-page majority opinion. “Under the Human Life Protection Act, a physician may perform an abortion if, exercising reasonable medical judgment, the physician determines that a woman has a life-threatening physical condition that places her at risk of death or serious physical impairment unless an abortion is performed.”
With its unanimous opinion, the all-Republican high court vacated a lower court injunction blocking the state from enforcing the ban against doctors providing life-saving abortions and installing a new standard for physicians to follow. The state had filed an accelerated appeal to the Texas Supreme Court staying the injunction.
The lawsuit central to this case began over a year ago when five women who had experienced life-threatening pregnancy complications and two doctors, represented by the Center for Reproductive Rights, sued Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and the Texas Medical Board, seeking clarity. As news spread about their lawsuit, an additional 15 women who had similar experiences joined. Together, the plaintiffs claimed that the laws as written deprived them of their right to equal protection under the state constitution.
The three laws being challenged in the lawsuit include the Human Life Protection Act, the Texas Heartbeat Act and a 1925 abortion ban that was revived following the U.S. Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade in 2022.
The Human Life Protection Act and the 1925 ban create both civil and criminal penalties for anyone found to have provided an abortion. Doctors face up to 99 years in prison, a minimum fine of $100,000 and the loss of their medical license if found guilty. The Texas Heartbeat Act, also known as Senate Bill 8, imposes a civil private right of action, allowing any citizen to sue anyone they believe performed or helped facilitate an abortion for a minimum of $10,000.
Senior staff attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights and lead attorney in the case, Molly Duane, said in a call with reporters that the court’s ruling provided a “feeble answer” to the question of when a person in Texas can receive an abortion under the medical exception. However, the court’s decision still falls far short of what she believes is needed to keep pregnant people safe.
“I am disturbed that the court rejected so many of our clients' claims to a constitutional right to life, health and fertility,” Duane said Friday. “These are women who came to court citing risks to their physical and mental health and continuing a pregnancy. A pregnancy that would never result in a new baby joining their families. But now we know the courthouse doors are closed to them.”
The Center for Reproductive Rights argued that the exception coded into all of the states three laws banning abortion suffer from being vague, leading to doctors opting not to offer care out of fears of prosecution. To resolve this, the group asked the courts to create a standard allowing the procedure when a doctor has a "good faith belief" that abortion is needed to save the life of the mother or prevent severe bodily impairment.
Bland pushed back on the Center for Reproductive Rights' request to clarify what “reasonable medical judgment” means under the statute. The Center argued that a good faith belief standard would create uniformity among doctors' standard of care, whereas one's medical judgment could vary from physician to physician.
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