Judge orders Texas to suspend new law banning most abortions
A federal judge on Wednesday ordered Texas to suspend the most restrictive abortion law in the U.S., which since September has banned most abortions in the nation’s second-most populous state. The order by U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman is the first legal blow to the Texas law known as Senate Bill 8, which until now had withstood a wave of early challenges. In the weeks since the restrictions took effect, Texas abortion providers say the impact has been “exactly what we feared.” In a 113-page opinion, Pitman took Texas to task over the law, saying Republicans lawmakers had “contrived an unprecedented and transparent statutory scheme” to deny patients their constitutional right to an abortion. “From the moment S.B. 8 went into effect, women have been unlawfully prevented from exercising control over their lives in ways that are protected by the Constitution,” Pitman wrote. “That other courts may find a way to avoid this conclusion is theirs to decide; this Court will not sanction one more day of this offensive deprivation of such an important right.” But even with the law on hold, abortion services in Texas may not instantly resume because doctors still fear that they could be sued without a more permanent legal decision. Texas officials are likely to seek a swift reversal from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which previously allowed the restrictions to take effect. The law, signed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in May, prohibits abortions once cardiac activity is detected, which is usually around six weeks, before some women even know they are pregnant. To enforce the law, Texas deputized private citizens to file lawsuits against violators and has entitled them to at least $10,000 in damages if successful. The lawsuit was brought by the Biden administration, which has said the restrictions were enacted in defiance of the U.S. Constitution. The Biden administration argued that Texas has waged an attack on a woman’s constitutional right to abortion under the GOP-engineered restrictions, which took effect Sept. 1. “A state may not ban abortions at six weeks. Texas knew this, but it wanted a six-week ban anyway, so the state resorted to an unprecedented scheme of vigilante justice that was designed to scare abortion providers and others who might help women exercise their constitutional rights,” Justice Department attorney Brian Netter told the federal court Friday. Abortion providers say their fears have become reality in the short time the law has been in effect. Planned Parenthood says the number of patients from Texas at its clinics in the state decreased by nearly 80% in the two weeks after the law took effect. Some providers have said that Texas clinics are now in danger of closing while neighboring states struggle to keep up with a surge of patients who must drive hundreds of miles. Other women, they say, are being forced to carry pregnancies to term. Other states, mostly in the South, have passed similar laws that ban abortion within the early weeks of pregnancy, all of which judges have blocked. But Texas’ version has so far outmaneuvered the courts because it leaves enforcement to private citizens to file suits, not prosecutors, which critics say amounts to a bounty. “This is not some kind of vigilante scheme,” said Will Thompson, defending the law for the Texas Attorney General’s Office. “This is a scheme that uses the normal, lawful process of justice in Texas.” The Texas law is just one that has set up the biggest test of abortion rights in the U.S. in decades, and it is part of a broader push by Republicans nationwide to impose new restrictions on abortion. On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court began a new term, which in December will include arguments in Mississippi’s bid to overturn 1973’s landmark Roe v. Wade decision guaranteeing a woman’s right to an abortion. Last month, the court did not rule on the constitutionality of the Texas law in allowing it to remain in place. But abortion providers took that 5-4 vote as an ominous sign about where the court might be heading on abortion after its conservative majority was fortified with three appointees of former President Donald Trump. Ahead of the new Supreme Court term, Planned Parenthood on Friday released a report saying that if Roe v. Wade were overturned, 26 states are primed to ban abortion. This year alone, nearly 600 abortion restrictions have been introduced in statehouses nationwide, with more than 90 becoming law, according to Planned Parenthood. Texas officials argued in court filings that even if the law were put on hold temporarily, providers could still face the threat of litigation over violations that might occur in the time between a permanent ruling. At least one Texas abortion provider has admitted to violating the law and been sued — but not by abortion opponents. Former attorneys in Illinois and Arkansas say they sued a San Antonio doctor in hopes of getting a judge who would invalidate the law. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Experts: COVID-19 waning in Alabama; threat still not over
The most recent wave of the COVID-19 pandemic appears to be waning in Alabama, with hospitalizations and new cases falling rapidly in the past month, but the state could face another round of illness without additional vaccinations and precautions, health experts said Wednesday. While statewide hospitalizations are less than half of what they were in early September and fewer people are contracting the illness, the combination of another virus variant and a slowdown in vaccinations could worsen the state’s predicament yet again, said two officials from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. “I really am very careful to say that we’ve won when I don’t feel that way right now,” said Dr. Rachael Lee, an epidemiologist with UAB Medicine. Russell Griffin, an associate professor of public health at UAB, said around 90% of COVID-19 patients are unvaccinated, and the average age of people hospitalized with the illness is about 10 years younger than those treated early this year. “Younger people are dying and that is what is scary to us,” he told a news briefing. More than 14,600 people in Alabama have died of COVID-19 since last year, and more than 800,000 have tested positive for the virus that causes it. Alabama has the nation’s fourth-worst death rate for the illness, with about 298 per 100,000 people, according to researchers at Johns Hopkins University. But the rolling average number of daily new cases has declined about 51% over the past two weeks, and the state is no longer dead-last nationally in its vaccination rate. Nearly 43% of residents are now fully vaccinated. After months of watching patients die, including many who contracted COVID-19 after refusing to get vaccines, health officials are glad to see some improvement. “It’s exciting that we are starting to see these numbers go down, but this is now the time more than ever to continue to wear masks, to get vaccinated if you haven’t been vaccinated yet,” said Lee. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Alabama Capital renames Confederate street to honor civil rights leader Fred Gray
The first capital of the Confederacy has renamed a street honoring the Confederate president to recognize a Black civil rights lawyer instead, despite an Alabama law meant to protect rebel monuments and memorials. The Montgomery City Council voted Tuesday night to rename Jeff Davis Avenue for attorney Fred D. Gray, who grew up on the street during the Jim Crow era and went on to represent clients including Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks. “When I think of heroes who exemplify the best in our city, (Gray) is certainly at the forefront of that,” said Mayor Steven Reed, the city’s first Black mayor. He initially proposed the change in December. The City Council’s unanimous approval could prompt a $25,000 fine under a state law passed in 2017 to prevent the removal or alteration of Confederate monuments, which have been challenged and taken down across the South, but Reed told news outlets donors already had offered to pay the penalty for the city, where delegates voted to form the Confederacy in 1861. Gray, 90, still practices law in Tuskegee, located east of Montgomery. He told the Montgomery Advertiser the city had kept him informed. “This is a project of the mayor’s,” he said. “He expressed it to me. I was very happy about it. And I am very happy about it.” Gray was a young lawyer when Parks was arrested for refusing to give her bus seat to a white man in 1955 in defiance of the city’s segregation laws. He represented both her and King, then a young pastor who led the yearlong bus boycott that followed. Gray is currently representing Tuskegee residents in a lawsuit aimed at removing a Confederate monument from a public square in the nearly all-Black city. A spokesman for the attorney general’s office didn’t immediately return a message seeking comment on whether the state would attempt to collect fine money from the city for renaming the street. The state recently collected a $25,000 fine after suing officials in Huntsville, where the county removed a Confederate memorial outside the county courthouse last year. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Challenger defeats deceased incumbent in Mobile election
Voters elected a living challenger over a deceased incumbent, who still managed to garner a sizeable chunk of the vote, in a runoff Tuesday for the Mobile City Council. News outlets report that William Carroll defeated deceased Mobile City Council member Levon Manzie. Manzie died last month after an extended illness, but his name was still on the ballot in mostly Black District 2, which Carroll once represented. Carroll won with 1,464 votes, or 57% of the vote, according to FOX10. Manzie, even though he is deceased, received 1,100 votes, or 43% of the vote. Another election would have been held if Manzie had won. WKRG-TV reported there were still posters and banners throughout the district asking voters to support Manzie. They include some that say “Our friend would still want to win” and others that say “Honor Levon’s legacy.” Manzie received more than twice as many votes as Carroll in the first election, which included six candidates. Carroll and supporters claim an out-of-town political action committee controlled by white Republicans was still pushing Manzie as a candidate. “These signs I believe are part of this PAC that is providing this work, to me there’s something not just right about this PAC. That’s why I say it’s time to heal District 2,” said Carroll. Both Manzie and Carroll are Black, and the head of the local chapter of the NAACP recorded a video that was released by Carroll’s campaign claiming that conservative activists are attempting to manipulate voters by promoting Manzie, a well-respected pastor, following his death. “His legacy will continue only through fair and just elections without the interference of special interest influence,” said the chapter president, Robert Clopton. Manzie opposed an annexation plan promoted by the city administration, Clopton said, and proponents are trying to get someone elected who will flip Manzie’s vote and back the proposal. Mayor Sandy Stimpson appointed Manzie’s mother, Jeanette Manzie, to serve the rest of her son’s current term, but she withdrew soon after. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
