In its lawsuit challenging Texas six-week abortion ban, the Justice Department is throwing a Hail Mary pass to get over the procedural stumbling blocks that have thwarted other attempts to block the ban in court.
The lawsuit, filed Thursday in a federal court in Austin, relies on a novel strategy in seeking to halt enforcement of the ban, which was designed specifically with the goal of evading review of federal courts.
The arguments that the Justice Department is presenting on the merits – that the law violates Supreme Court constitutional precedent on abortion rights – are on solid ground. But the question is whether its lawsuit can get around the same procedural issues that doomed the earlier federal lawsuit brought by abortion clinics.
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