Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton Thursday filed court papers with the Supreme Court, asking the nine justices to deny an attempt to rescind the state’s recent ban on abortions after six weeks. “The heartbeat provisions in SB 8 reasonably further Texas’s interest in protecting unborn life, which exists from the outset of pregnancy” and further doesn’t “violate the Fourteenth Amendment,” Paxton wrote (pdf) in a submission to the court, referring to Senate Bill 8. On Monday, the Justice Department’s lawyers suggested that the Supreme Court could leapfrog over the lower courts that are considering arguments on the law and make its own decision. But if the Supreme Court takes up a legal challenge recently filed by the Biden administration, the justices could move to overturn the 1973 landmark Roe v. Wade decision that essentially legalized the procedure nationwide. Paxton made the court ruling in response to the Department of Justice’s request …