Sotomayor blasts fellow Justices after SCOTUS agrees to take up US case against Texas abortion ban but not block law

David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement
October 22, 2021

Justice Sotomayor -- YouTube screenshot

The U.S. Supreme Court has just agreed to hear arguments in federal government's case against Texas' abortion ban, after the Dept. of Justice petitioned the Court to intervene. DOJ had asked the justices to uphold a district court's ruling that blocked the law but Friday afternoon conservatives on the nation's highest court refused to do so, allowing the near-total ban to remain the law of the land.

Contrary to several breaking news reports, the Supreme Court will not be hearing arguments on the "substance" of the federal government's case against the Texas abortion ban itself, known as SB 8, but merely "whether the US can sue 'the State, state court judges, state court clerks, other state officials, or all private parties to prohibit S.B. 8 from being enforced,'" University of Texas law professor Stephen Vladeck notes:

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor blasted her conservative colleagues for not placing a hold on the law itself, as Slate's Mark Joseph Stern reports, saying: "Every day the Court fails to grant relief is devastating, both for individual women and for our constitutional system as a whole."

Arguments are set for November 1. The Court at that time will also hear arguments from Whole Women's Health, which is also suing Texas over its abortion ban.