Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor castigated the state of Texas and her fellow justices on Thursday after the nations highest court denied a request from abortion providers to move a case challenging a restrictive abortion law to a district court, calling the decision a grave disservice to women.

The Supreme Court on Thursday denied the latest request to step in amid an ongoing legal challenge over Texas newly implemented law , which effectively bans abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, when many people dont even know theyre pregnant.

Abortion providers had asked the court to direct the case back to a district judge who had previously blocked the law after a U.S. circuit court sent it to the Texas Supreme Court instead, where it could be held up in months of legal proceedings.

Sotomayor said the decision indulged Texas newest delay tactics, time that will only prevent women from seeking medical care as the case wends its way through the courts.

Today, for the fourth time, this court declines to protect pregnant Texans from egregious violations of their constitutional rights, the justice wrote in her dissent , joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Stephen Breyer. The court may look the other way, but I cannot.

This case is a disaster for the rule of law and a grave disservice to women in Texas, who have a right to control their own bodies, she continued. I will not stand by silently as a state continues to nullify this constitutional guarantee. I dissent.