Supreme Court upholds Texas abortion ban — for now

Texas's abortion law can take effect, even as it's being fought in court; Covid spikes could prompt harsher rules in South Korea and Switzerland.

Tonight's Sentences was written by Ellen Ioanes. 

Supreme Court: Texas can enforce SB 8

Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call Inc. via Getty Images

• The Supreme Court will allow a Texas ban on abortions after six weeks to stay in place while abortion providers in the state file suit to overturn the law. The ban is unique in that it’s supposed to be enforced by citizens and not the state — potentially enabling vigilantism while shielding the law from legal challenge. [NBC News / Pete Williams]
• Prior to Friday’s ruling, it wasn’t clear that opponents of the law, known as Senate Bill 8, could sue the state to block it, due to its peculiar enforcement measure. Citizens are meant to sue those they suspect of assisting pregnant people to obtain abortions, and the state is forbidden from enforcing the measure. [NYT / Adam Liptak]
• Though the court dismissed the Justice Department’s suit to stop enforcement of the law while it’s being challenged in court, the Texas abortion provider Whole Woman’s Health is now able to sue Texas officials including Attorney General Ken Paxton to block SB 8. They’re challenging the law on the basis that it violates the Constitution and the 1992 case Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which ruled that while states may place restrictions on abortion care, those restrictions can’t place an undue burden on people seeking abortions. [Kaiser Health News / Julie Rovner]
• The Texas law is the second challenge to Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling enshrining the right to abortion, that the nation’s highest court has heard in recent weeks. The other is a suit challenging a Mississippi law banning most abortions after 15 weeks — before the generally recognized threshold of fetal viability, 23 or 24 weeks of pregnancy. [NPR / Wynne Davis]
• The Court heard a previous case against the enforcement of the law in September; opponents had requested an emergency injunction to prevent it from taking effect, which the Court failed to grant, claiming opponents had failed to show that their case would “succeed on the merits,” and that the litigant would be “irreparably injured absent a stay.” That case, like the DOJ’s suit, has nothing to do with the substance of SB 8 itself and whether it’s constitutional; that remains to be decided. [AP / Mark Sherman]

Covid-19 vs. the world

• Covid-19 is still wreaking havoc throughout the world as the pandemic enters its third year. Despite that, global vaccinations are still lagging. [CNN / Rob Picheta]
• South Korea recorded its third straight day of more than 7,000 Covid-19 cases Friday, prompting Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum to warn that the nation will “have no other choice but to employ extraordinary anti-virus measures,” like “strong social distancing,” should the case count not subside soon. Though the government said it will try to avoid a lockdown, restrictions on business hours and social gatherings may be implemented, according to Deputy Health Minister Lee Ki-il. [AP / Kim Tong-Hyung]
• In Switzerland, officials warn of a limited lockdown to prevent the spread of the virus, which has infected about a tenth of the population of the country and its neighbor Lichtenstein. Officials have discussed limiting gatherings; closing indoor areas of bars, restaurants, and gyms; requiring negative tests — even for vaccinated people — to access certain events and venues; and expanding proof of vaccination requirements. [Reuters]
• Despite surging cases, even in highly vaccinated countries, Covax — the UN’s vaccine-sharing program charged with delivering doses to low-income countries — won’t deliver even half the doses of the Covid-19 vaccines promised for 2021. Initially, the program was supposed to deliver 2.3 billion doses; it will struggle to deliver even 800 million. [Washington Post / Adam Taylor]

We write for the people

England’s highest court has ruled that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange can be extradited to the US to be tried for espionage, after leaking thousands of classified documents in 2010 and 2011. [BBC / Becky Morton]

• A truck carrying migrants in Mexico crashed Thursday, killing 55 and injuring at least 52. [AP / Manuel de la Cruz and Edgar H. Clemente]
• A federal appeals court dealt another blow to former President Donald Trump’s request to withhold documents from the congressional committee on the January 6 Capitol attacks. [NYT / Charlie Savage]
• The Senate passed a measure Thursday allowing Democrats to raise the debt limit without Republican support in a separate bill — just before the government’s borrowing power runs out. [WSJ / Andrew Duehren]

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"The tribunal is satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the PRC, by the imposition of measures to prevent births intended to destroy a significant part of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang as such, has committed genocide.”

[Geoffrey Nice, chair of the Uyghur Tribunal, on the ruling the independent, UK-based panel issued Thursday, regarding China’s systematic oppression of members of the Uyghur and other Turkic Muslim ethnic groups]

Until 1993, many researchers excluded women from clinical drug trials, leaving doctors in the dark about how new treatments work in more than half the population. This is the story of why that happened, the women who fought to change it, and what we still don’t know about how sex and gender affect health. [Spotify]

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