Texas AG Urges Supreme Court to Leave Anti-Abortion Law Intact

Members of the Supreme Court pose for a group photograph at the Supreme Court in Washington on April 23, 2021. Seated from left: Associate Justice Samuel Alito, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice John Roberts, Associate Justice Stephen Breyer, and Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Standing from left: Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Associate Justice Elena Kagan, Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch, and Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Erin Schaff/Pool/Getty Images

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed court papers with the Supreme Court, asking the nine justices to deny an attempt to rescind the state’s recent ban on abortions after six weeks.

“The heartbeat provisions in SB 8 reasonably further Texas’s interest in protecting unborn life, which exists from the outset of pregnancy” and further doesn’t “violate the Fourteenth Amendment,” Paxton wrote (pdf) in a submission to the court on Oct. 21, referring to Senate Bill 8.