BREAKING: abortion providers just filed an emergency motion at the Supreme Court challenging the coronavirus-related abortion ban in Texas.

TX Gov. Abbott signed an exec order on March 23 that effectively erases Roe v. Wade for Texas women during the pandemic. Similar bans were announced in Iowa, Alabama, Ohio, Oklahoma and (yesterday) Mississippi.

All but the TX and MS bans have been clipped by courts.

Plaintiffs are asking the justices to re-impose a limited temporary restraining order on the ban that a district court imposed on April 9. Yesterday the 5th circuit court of appeals temporarily reversed the lower court—restoring (most of) the abortion ban—by a 2-1 vote.

As it stands, w/o SCOTUS intervention, medication abortions are prohibited for Texas women. Surgical abortions are permitted only for women about to reach 22 weeks.

This despite the fact that medication abortions do not consume PPE & childbirth invariably does.

(This is the second emergency request in a pandemic-related matter in two weeks. One week ago today, Wisconsin Republicans asked SCOTUS to curtail an absentee voting extension; on Monday, it granted that request by a 5-4 vote.)

How will this dispute come out?

On one hand, there are 5 justices quite hostile to Roe v. Wade who will probably vote to overrule it some years down the line. These pro-life justices could defer to the governor's judgment re the emergency posed by the pandemic & save the ban.

OTOH some of those 5 conservatives may not be keen on suspending a (still-valid) constitutional right during an emergency for no good reason. Could set a precedent for denying other rts: gun rights, relig free exercise, etc. they would *not* want trampled in the name of covid-19.

Might also appear odd for the Court to shrug at the pandemic in last week's WI election case and now say, sure, yes, curtailing rights willy nilly is perfectly acceptable given the health emergency.

Here is the motion https://drive.google.com/open?id=1_KM-Rs_cxt-iT3fo87MhbisBM86wWriQ