The courts have a new chance to block Texas’s abortion law. They must take it | Laurence Tribe, Erwin Chemerinsky, Jeffrey Abramson and Dennis Aftergut

SB 8 not only stripped Texan women of their rights under Roe v Wade, it made a mockery of the US constitution and the supremacy of the federal courts

Sadly, predictably and appallingly, on October 14, a three judge panel of the US court of appeals for the fifth circuit has allowed Texas's Bounty-Hunter" anti-abortion law to go back into effect while the court considers the case on the merits. Every day that the fifth circuit panel's unlawful order keeps the statute in operation brings irreversible injury to women in Texas. US Attorney General Merrick Garland has properly decided to seek emergency relief from the US supreme court.

The justice department is right to accuse the State of Texas of seeking to destroy not only abortion rights but also the foundation of our constitutional Republic. In a nation whose history is fraught with battles between states' rights and national sovereignty, the case of United States v Texas raises issues basic to our national compact.

Laurence H Tribe is the Carl M Loeb University Professor emeritus and a professor of constitutional law emeritus at Harvard Law School. Erwin Chemerinsky is the dean of the School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. Jeffrey Abramson is Professor of Law and Government at the University of Texas, Austin. Dennis Aftergut is a former federal prosecutor