A divided Supreme Court late Wednesday refused to block one of the nation's most restrictive abortion laws, a unique Texas statute that bans the procedure as early as six weeks into pregnancy.
Because the court did not act earlier in the day, the law already had taken effect, and clinics in Texas said they had stopped providing abortions starting at six weeks after a woman’s last period.
The court’s five most consistent conservatives — Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr., plus President Donald Trump’s nominees to the court, Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — said they would let the law stand while the legal battle over it continues.
