(Bloomberg) -- Reproductive-rights advocates asked the U.S. Supreme Court to take up an expedited appeal centering on Texas’s new ban on most abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy.

The appeal challenges the law’s novel enforcement structure, which lets private parties, but not government agencies, sue clinics and people who help facilitate abortions. That provision so far has thwarted the ability of abortion providers to get a court order stopping the law. The Supreme Court voted 5-4 to let the measure take effect earlier this month.

The appeal takes the unusual step of asking the Supreme Court to hear an appeal without waiting for a federal appeals court ruling.

©2021 Bloomberg L.P.