The supreme court’s abortion ruling is even more unsettling than it may seem | Moira Donegan

In allowing Texas's outrageous abortion ban to stay in place, the court signaled that it is willing to sacrifice its own legitimacy and power in order to destroy Roe

Don't be fooled by the supreme court's nominal hedging on its endorsement of SB8, the Texas abortion ban that deputizes private citizens to sue anyone who assists in an abortion after six weeks' gestation. In a ruling on Friday, the court held that a lawsuit by Texas abortion providers could go forward - but only on narrow grounds. Only those state officials responsible for licensing medical providers may be sued, the court ordered - no one else involved in the state's practical maintenance of SB8 is liable. The ruling said, for instance, that the providers could not sue court clerks, those bureaucrats tasked with actually docketing the lawsuits that would enforce SB8.

For providers, it seems that the best possible outcome for the suit now is that they may be able to secure an injunction preventing medical providers from being delicensed. These perplexing limits placed by the court on which parties can be sued to challenge SB8 ensures that though the suit against the law will be at least partly allowed to go forward, it will be largely toothless.

Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist