The Biden administration announced on Friday it would ask the Supreme Court to throw out a Texas law that bans almost all abortions after a federal appeals panel allowed the restrictions to stay in place.
Texas clinics are running out of options as they try to beat a ban on abortions after cardiac activity is detected - at about the six-week mark, when many women may not even know they are pregnant.
The law took effect on Sept 1 and makes exceptions for medical emergency but not for rape or incest.
Opponents say it is the biggest barrier to abortion imposed in almost 50 years.
Their latest defeat came Thursday night when a conservative-leaning federal appeals panel in New Orleans, in a 2-1 decision, allowed the restrictions to remain in place for a third time in the last several weeks.
A day later, Department of Justice spokesman Anthony Coley said the administration would ask justices of the Supreme Court to overturn that result.
'The Justice Department intends to ask the Supreme Court to vacate the Fifth Circuit's stay of the preliminary injunction against Texas Senate Bill 8,' he said.
The Biden administration is planning another effort to overturn the near total ban on abortion in Texas as clinics run out of options to throw out the law
Women's rights advocates participate in the nationwide Women's March, held after Texas rolled out a near-total ban on abortion, in Austin, Texas
Demonstrators rally against anti-abortion and voter suppression laws at the Texas State Capitol on October 2, 2021 in Austin, Texas. The Women's March and other groups organized marches across the country to protest the new abortion law in Texas
Texas women have been force to seek out abortion clinics in neighboring states, sometimes driving hours through the middle of the night and including patients as young as 12 years old.
The Biden administration was under pressure from abortion rights supporters to go to the Supreme Court even before the announcement. The court already once allowed the restrictions to take effect, but did so
