Hmmm: SCOTUS declines to stop heartbeat-abortion “ban” in Texas HotAir

Does this silence from the Supreme Court speak volumes about the future of Roe v Wade? Despite emergency appeals from the ACLU and others, the court declined to act in any direction as a new law took effect overnight in Texas. The law bans  sort of any abortion after a fetal heartbeat has been detected, a stage that arrives at roughly six weeks into a pregnancy:

A controversial Texas law that bars abortions at six weeks went into effect early Wednesday morning after the Supreme Court and a federal appeals court failed to rule on pending emergency requests brought by abortion providers.

The lack of judicial intervention means that the law which is one of the strictest in the nation and bans abortion before many people know they are pregnant goes into force absent further court intervention.

The law allows private citizens to bring civil suits against anyone who assists a pregnant person seeking an abortion in violation of the ban.

No other six-week ban has been allowed to go into effect even briefly.

No other court had this configuration either, and this configuration had never been presented with such a case before. Normally it would take four justices to grant cert, but under certain conditions a single justice could grant a very temporary stay while referring a request for a longer stay to the full court. That request would have come to Justice Samuel Alito, who covers the Fifth Circuit for emergency requests, and who has been openly hostile to Roe.

via hotair.com