“We cannot rewrite the statute,” the justices wrote.
“With this ruling, the sliver of this case that we were left with is gone,” said Nancy Northup, the president of the Center for Reproductive Rights.
Texas’ attorney general, Ken Paxton, declared it a “major victory.”
“This measure, which has saved thousands of unborn babies, remains fully in effect, and the pro-abortion plaintiffs’ lawsuit against the state is essentially finished,” he wrote on Twitter.
Abortion rights supporters and legal scholars said the Texas law would encourage other states not only to pass similar bans on abortion, but to attempt to nullify other precedents they oppose.
The law allows no exceptions for abortion even in the case of women who have been raped or are victims of incest. It has thrown Texas abortion providers into crisis, and similar legislation is pending around the country.
The Supreme Court is considering a Mississippi law that bans abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, and in oral arguments in December, the six conservative justices on the court appeared inclined to uphold that law.
Several justices indicated that they would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade outright, as Mississippi has asked. And lawyers for abortion rights groups argued that even if the court only upholds the Mississippi law, it would effectively overturn Roe because of its central holding on viability.
Already, state legislatures are advancing bans on abortion as if Roe were overturned. Some have passed outright bans on abortion that are to take effect immediately if the court rules to overturn Roe even “in part,” and others have prepared to ban the procedure at six, 10, 12 and 15 weeks.