The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Republican Attorney General of Kentucky may intervene to defend a state abortion law passed by a federal appeals court after the governor, a Democrat, declined to appeal further.
The question in the case was procedural and the court did not address the constitutionality of the abortion law. The court in recent months has allowed a Texas law banning most abortions after six weeks to go into effect and has heard arguments in a Mississippi case over that state’s 15-week ban.
Questions from conservative judges in the Mississippi case suggested they may be preparing to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that established a constitutional right to abortion.
Thursday’s decision, in Cameron v. EMW Women’s Surgical Center, No. 20-601, related to a Kentucky law that challengers said effectively banned the most common method of abortion in the second trimester of pregnancy, dilation and evacuation. .
The case began in 2018, when the state’s only abortion clinic and two doctors sued several state officials to challenge the law. Then-state attorney general Andy Beshear, a Democrat, said his office was not responsible for enforcing the law and concluded a provision dismissing the case against him, agreeing to abide by the final verdict. and to reserve the right of appeal.
The Secretary of Health, appointed by a Republican governor, defended the law in court. A federal court rejected the law, saying it violated Supreme Court precedent. The health secretary appealed, but the attorney general did not.
As the case progressed, Kentucky’s political landscape changed. Mr Beshear, who had been Attorney General, was elected governor. Daniel Cameron, a Republican, was elected Attorney General.
Mr Beshear appointed a new health secretary, Eric Friedlander, who continued to defend the law on appeal. But after a divided panel of three judges on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in Cincinnati, upheld the judge’s ruling, Mr. Friedlander to request review from the full Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court.
Mr Cameron, the new Attorney General, wanted to intervene in the appeals court and said he had the right to defend the law. The appeals court rejected his request, ruling that it was too late.
Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr., who writes for the majority, said the appeals court made a mistake.
“A state’s opportunity to defend its laws in federal court should not be lightly cut,” he wrote. “Respect for state sovereignty should also consider a state’s authority to structure its executive branch so that multiple officials are able to defend its sovereign interests in federal court.”
Only Judge Sonia Sotomayor disagreed. “I fear today’s decision will open the floodgates for government officials to evade the consequences of court decisions taken by their predecessors from various political parties,” she wrote, “undermining finality and disrupting established expectations.” of courts, litigants and the public.”
In an argument last week in a case that presented a similar issue, Judge Stephen G. Breyer, apparently forgetting that the court had not yet ruled in the Kentucky case, appeared to reveal what it would look like.
“Pretty similar to what we just allowed in that Attorney General’s case,” he said. “You know, it was a different party. What was it, Kentucky?”