IN LIMBO

Appeals Court Deals New Blow to Opponents of Texas’ Abortion Ban

A federal appeals court punted a decision about Texas’ restrictive abortion law to the state’s GOP-controlled Supreme Court.

Abortion advocates faced a setback on Monday after a federal appeals court punted a decision about Texas’ restrictive law banning abortions from roughly six weeks to the state’s GOP-controlled Supreme Court with no immediate timeline for when the state’s high court would examine the case. Abortion providers had hoped for their lawsuit to be sent back to a federal court in Austin but it was redirected instead to the Texas Supreme Court following a 2-1 decision by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Judge Stephen Higginson, an appointee of President Barack Obama who dissented, criticized the drawn out process. “By certifying this question and, worse, by simultaneously carrying a motion for further briefing to us with the case, we are only causing further delay, indeed delay without specified end,” Higginson wrote. “This further, second-guessing redundancy, without time limit, deepens my concern that justice delayed is justice denied, here impeding relief ordered by the Supreme Court.”