Last week, a three-judge panel from the 5th Circuit declined Texas's petition to allow the state to enforce the law while the court prepared its ruling. In response, Texas officials called for a rehearing "en banc," which would mean the full 17-judge panel would make a decision on the state's request to enforce its law.
Below is an excerpt from the Texas petition (internal citiations omitted for clarity):
"In November 2017, the district court below enjoined the enforcement of an important Texas abortion regulation. Texas filed a notice of appeal the same day. This appeal has been pending ever since. Though the Panel assigned to this case heard oral argument almost two years ago, it has not yet issued its decision, and it has denied Texas’s motion to stay the injunction below pending resolution of this appeal. Whether a State may enforce a duly enacted law is a question of exceptional importance. Furthermore, the Panel’s order creates an acknowledged circuit split with the Eighth Circuit’s decision in Hopkins v. Jegley. Therefore, Texas now asks the en banc Court to stay the district court’s injunction and allow Texas to enforce its law immediately."
Hopkins v. Jegley is a recent case in which several Arkansas pro-life laws were upheld, including the state's own dismemberment abortion ban.
In dismemberment abortions, often referred to by the abortion industry as "dilation and evacuation abortions," abortionists stretch a pregnant mother's cervix open by placing sterilized and absorbent seaweed called laminaria into the cervix. After it has been stretched for 24-48 hours, an abortionist will use this larger opening to reach into the mother's womb with grasping tools. These tools allow the abortionist to tear an unborn child's limbs from its body until all the pieces of the child are removed from the womb.
Dismemberment abortion is a brutal violation of human rights, but it's also a common abortion method. Unborn children that have grown into the second trimester of pregnancy are too large for other abortion methods to succeed.
