Court won’t block Texas abortion ban but fast-tracks cases for argument on Nov. 1

The Supreme Court will hear oral argument on Nov. 1 in a pair of cases challenging the Texas law that bans nearly all abortions after the sixth week of pregnancy. In two orders issued on Friday afternoon, the court granted requests by the Biden administration and a group of Texas abortion providers to leap-frog proceedings in the court of appeals, but it allowed the law to remain in effect for now — a decision that drew a stinging dissent from Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

The two orders suggest that the court will not directly weigh in on whether the Texas law, known as S.B. 8, violates the constitutional right to obtain an abortion. Instead, in the case brought by the Biden administration, the court will consider whether the federal government has the right to sue in federal court to block the law’s enforcement. And in the case brought by the abortion providers, the court will assess the law’s unusual private-enforcement structure, which deputizes private individuals to bring lawsuits against doctors, clinics, or anyone else who “aids or abets” an abortion.