Texas Abortion Clinics Lose Major Battle in Fight Over State Ban
- State high court rules Texas officials are immune from suits
- Decision blocks one avenue for U.S. Supreme Court review
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The Texas Supreme Court shut down a closely watched legal challenge to the state’s restrictive abortion law, ruling that clinics and women’s-rights advocates can’t sue state medical-licensing officials because they don’t enforce the law.
In a unanimous Friday ruling, the state high court said Texas officials were immune from suit because the abortion law made civil suits by private citizens the exclusive avenue of enforcement. The decision will likely result in the dismissal of a federal suit that the clinics had hoped would get the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the law.