Vice President Kamala Harris comments on U.S. Supreme Court's refusal to block Texas law that bans abortion after six-weeks of pregnancy....The court did, however, rule that abortion providers can challenge the Texas law in federal court....By editor Kathy Wray Coleman of Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's Black digital news leader
(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com) .
By Kathy Wray Coleman, associate publisher, editor-in-chief
WASHINGTON, D.C.- In a 5-4 split decision, the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday refused to reverse the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals and allowed a Texas law that bans abortion after roughly six weeks of pregnancy to remain in effect, denying requested emergency relief from abortion providers who had asked the nation's highest court to put the law on hold as legal challenges from opponents of the new measure make their way through the courts.
Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat and former California attorney general, and the country's first woman and first Black vice president, was disappointed with the court decision and said in a press release on Saturday to Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com that "the harm to women remains," and that "we must protect the constitutional right recognized under Roe v. Wade by codifying it into law and we must pass the Women's Health Protection Act."
Chief Justice John Roberts and the three liberal justices, including two Obama appointees, dissented as to Friday's high court ruling with Justice Neil Gorsuch, a Trump appointee, writing the opinion for the majority, namely the five members of the court representing its conservative arm, including Justice Clarence Thomas, the only Black on the court and a George W. Bush appointee.
Gorsuch stressed in the court's 48-page majority opinion that the court's review in the matter was procedural and not a ruling on the merits or as to the constitutionality of the law. And he said on behalf of the court that the plaintiffs', who argued that the law is egregious enough to warrant emergency intervention by the court, did not meet the burden by which the court could intervene and block enforcement of the law pending the outcome of lower court litigation on the issue.
The court, however, did rule that lawsuits in federal court challenging the law, officially dubbed Senate Bill 8, can go forward, the only sliver of hope, say sources, for abortion and reproductive rights advocates who fear that SB8, which does not have a waiver for rape or incest, opens the floodgates for the passage of similar anti-abortion laws across the country by Republican- dominated state legislatures.
The controversial Texas law, which took effect on Wednesday, also permits random civilians to sue those who violate the law for such things of aiding an abortion for up to $10,000, activity that opponents say is ludicrous and commensurate to economic sanctions in the form of a bounty.
Like the aforementioned abortion clinics and other providers who had asked the court to block the new Texas law while lawsuits over the statute's legality continue, President Joe Biden's administration had also asked the Supreme Court to reverse the decision by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans to lift a judge's order blocking the law until lower courts could rule in the cases before them. But the court, also on Friday, denied that request too.
In response the Democratic president said Friday that he is "very concerned."
Friday's Supreme Court decision comes on the heels of another recent precedent setting case relative to abortion rights. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Dec 1 in the celebrated abortion rights case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which challenges a Mississippi law that bans practically all abortions after 15 weeks. The case is, by most standards, the latest attempt to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark Supreme Court decision that made abortion legal nationwide.
Vice President Harris, 57, is the first woman of color to compete on a major party presidential ticket in America. Her parents, who divorced when she was five years old, were both immigrants, her mom from Chennai, India, her dad from Jamaica. She won the election for vice president in November of 2020 when Biden ousted then president Donald Trump, Biden winning both the popular vote and the electoral college.
Then the California attorney general, Harris was elected to the U.S. Senate for the first time in 2016. When she was chosen by Biden as his running mate on his presidential ticket she became the fourth woman to compete on a major party presidential ticket in America behind vice presidential candidates Sarah Palin in 2008 and Geraldine Ferraro in 1984, and behind Hillary Clinton in 2016, Clinton a presidential candidate that year.
(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com) the most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview, CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.
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