Texas has filed its reply brief opposing the United States motion asking the Supreme Court to reinstate District Judge Robert Pitman's preliminary injunction against its notorious SB 8 law. The Texas measure promises a bounty of at least $10,000 anyone who reports anyone conducting or aiding an abortion after six weeks of gestation.
Texas proposes to enforce the ban by deputizing private litigants, whose awards would ultimately be entered by Texas judges and executed by constables. Texas claims that it is immune because it has outsourced enforcement - though its courts will eventually enter judgments for the bounty hunters.
The arrogance of the Texas lawyers is stunning. The "putative constitutional right" is one recognized by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade (1972) and has repeatedly withstood attack, as it did in 1992 in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Those cases should be overturned Texas asserts. The paragraph below is particularly noteworthy:
Under binding case law, the federal government is not adverse to Texas merely because it thinks a Texas law is unconstitutional. And it lacks standing because it has not been injured by SB 8. The federal government cannot get an abortion, and the Constitution does not assign it any special role to protect any putative right to abortion. Thus, the theory of standing found in In re Debs, 158 U.S. 564 (1895), is inapplicable. And its speculation that SB 8 may adversely affect various federal programs is just that—speculation unsupported by the government’s own witnesses. The government does not even try to defend the trial court’s discussion of parens patriae standing.
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