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Justice Sonia Sotomayor tore into her fellow legislators on the Supreme Court Friday for refusing to nix Texas’ new abortion law, asserting that the High Court had betrayed the United States’ “constitutional system of government.”
The Supreme Court ruled that abortion providers could continue to sue Texas over the abortion mandate, but they also ruled that the law could stand for now until a determination is announced whether it will be struck down or not.
Originalist Justice Clarence Thomas was the only member of the court to fully dissent in the 8-1 ruling.
Sotomayor was incensed over the Court’s failure to rule against the law bringing it to a halt permanently and partially dissented over it. Justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan also made their disapproval clear in their opinions.
“The Court should have put an end to this madness months ago before S. B. 8 first went into effect. It failed to do so then, and it fails again today,” Sotomayor heatedly wrote. “By foreclosing suit against state-court officials and the state attorney general, the Court effectively invites other States to refine S. B. 8’s model for nullifying federal rights. The Court thus betrays not only the citizens of Texas but also our constitutional system of government.”
Justice Sotomayor today on SB8 – joined by Breyer and Kagan. pic.twitter.com/DKaMngbffl
— Chase Strangio (@chasestrangio) December 10, 2021
Justice Sotomayor: "My disagreement with the Court runs far deeper than a quibble over how many defendants these petitioners may sue. The dispute is over whether States may nullify federal constitutional rights by employing schemes like the one at hand."
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) December 10, 2021
Sotomayor: The Court "errs gravely in foreclosing relief against state-court officials and the state attorney general. By so doing, the Court leaves all manner of constitutional rights more vulnerable than ever before, to the great detriment of our Constitution and our Republic."
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) December 10, 2021
“The chilling effect has been near-total, depriving pregnant women in Texas of virtually all opportunity to seek abortion care within their home State after their sixth week of pregnancy,” she wrote.
“Some women have vindicated their rights by traveling out of State. For the many women who are unable to do so, their only alternatives are to carry unwanted pregnancies to term or attempt self-induced abortions outside of the medical system,” she added.
Sotomayor also wrote that the law “echoes the philosophy of John C. Calhoun, a virulent defender of the slaveholding South who insisted that States had the right to ‘veto’ or ‘nullif[y]’ any federal law with which they disagreed.”
“The Nation fought a Civil War over that proposition,” she disingenuously argued. “But Calhoun’s theories were not extinguished.”
Justice Sotomayor likens the Texas abortion ban to "the philosophy of John C. Calhoun, a virulent defender of the slaveholding South who insisted that States had the right to "veto" or "nullif[y]" any federal law with which they
disagreed."— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) December 10, 2021
Justice Gorsuch took on Sotomayor claiming that the court has considered that question and previously rejected it. “[Sotomayor] contends that S. B. 8 ‘chills’ the exercise of federal constitutional rights,” he wrote.
“If nothing else, she says, this fact warrants allowing further relief in this case … Here again, however, it turns out that the Court has already and often confronted— and rejected—this very line of thinking. As our cases explain, the ‘chilling effect’ associated with a potentially unconstitutional law being ‘on the books’ is insufficient to ‘justify federal intervention’ in a pre-enforcement suit,” he contended.
He went on to say that “this Court has always required proof of a more concrete injury and compliance with traditional rules of equitable practice … The Court has consistently applied these requirements whether the challenged law in question is said to chill the free exercise of religion, the freedom of speech, the right to bear arms, or any other right. The petitioners are not entitled to a special exemption.”
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