Paxton pushes pre-Roe abortion laws to lift restraining order permitting abortions

SAN ANTONIO (Texas News Radio) — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed an emergency motion to the Texas Supreme Court Thursday requesting that it lifts a temporary restraining order issued by a lower court that would allow abortions to continue to be allowed to be performed.

Paxton argued that the temporary restraining order should be vacated because the state legislature never repealed criminal laws banning abortion in the state before the Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973.

Those laws prohibited abortion in the state except in cases when it was necessary to save the life of the mother.

The attorney general said Roe v. Wade prevented those laws from being enforced.  The overturning of that decision, according to his office, means those pre-Roe laws can now be enforced.

This is separate from the “trigger law” the state legislature passed in 2021 that bans abortions 30 days after the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

“The trial court was wrong to enjoin enforcement of Texas’s longstanding prohibitions on elective abortion,” said Attorney General Paxton, “Let there be no mistake: the lower court’s unlawful order does not immunize criminal conduct, which can be punished at a later date once the temporary restraining order is lifted. My office will not hesitate to act in defense of unborn Texans put in jeopardy by plaintiffs’ wrongful actions and the trial court’s erroneous order.”

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