[409]*409E. GRADY JOLLY, Circuit Judge:
Sitting as an en banc court, we consider whether the district court properly enjoined the “operation and effect” of the Louisiana state tort statute at issue, which provides a private cause of action against medical doctors performing abortions. Although, in this facial attack on the constitutionality of the statute, consideration of the merits may have strong appeal to some, we are powerless to act except to say that we cannot act: these plaintiffs have no case or controversy with these defendants, the Governor and Attorney General of Louisiana, and consequently we lack Article III jurisdiction to decide this case. Seven members of this en banc court conclude that the panel was in serious error, as indeed is the dissent, in finding that this ease presents an Ex parte Young exception to the Eleventh Amendment immunity from suit in federal court, which these defendants, the Governor and Attorney General of Louisiana, enjoy. Accordingly, we reverse, vacate, and remand for entry of a judgment of dismissal.
I
Dr. Ifeanyi Charles Anthony Okpalobi (“Okpalobi”), joined through intervention by five health care climes and other physicians, individuals, and businesses who perform abortions in the State of Louisiana,1 challenge the constitutionality of La. R.S. Ann., tit. 9, § 2800.12 (West Supp.1999), or, more commonly, “Act 825.”2 The defendants are Mike Foster, Governor of Louisiana, and Richard Ieyoub, Attorney General of Louisiana.3 No patients of the plaintiffs appear as parties in this suit.
Act 825 provides to women who undergo an abortion a private tort remedy against the doctors who perform the abortion. It exposes those doctors to unlimited tort liability for any damage caused by the abortion procedure to both mother and “unborn child.” Damages may be reduced, but not eliminated altogether (and perhaps not at all with respect to any damages asserted on behalf of the fetus), if the pregnant woman signs a consent form prior to the abortion procedure.
[410]*410The plaintiffs argue that Act 825 constitutes an “undue burden” on a woman’s right to obtain an abortion and is thus unconstitutional under Planned, Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 112 S.Ct. 2791, 120 L.Ed.2d 674 (1992). The plaintiffs further claim that the Act will force physicians in Louisiana to cease providing abortion services to women because of the potential exposure to civil damage claims authorized by the Act.4 Finally, the plaintiffs assert that, if they are forced to discontinue providing their services, the State may have achieved in practical terms what it could not constitutionally do otherwise— eliminate abortions in Louisiana.
II
The district court granted a temporary restraining order enjoining implementation of the Act on August 14, 1997. Act 825, according to the district court, “has the purpose and effect of infringing and chilling the exercise of constitutionally protected rights.” The court therefore granted the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction on January 7, 1998. See Okpalobi v. Foster, 981 F.Supp. 977, 986 (E.D.La.1998). The following month, finding that the Act places an unconstitutional undue burden on a woman’s right to abortion, the court converted the temporary injunction into a permanent injunction.5 The State timely appealed.
On appeal, a panel of this court upheld the injunction. Okpalobi v. Foster, 190 F.3d 337 (5th Cir.1999). The panel specifically addressed the Eleventh Amendment issue — whether, under Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123, 28 S.Ct. 441, 52 L.Ed. 714 (1908), the state official defendants had sufficient “connection” to the act in question to overcome the Eleventh Amendment bar of suits against states in federal court.6 The panel determined that “the Governor and the Attorney General have powers and duties under state law sufficient to meet the minimum requirements under the Eleventh Amendment.” Okpalobi, 190 F.3d at 346. The panel further concluded that the plaintiffs had standing to assert their rights and the rights of their patients. Id. at 350-353. The panel then concluded that a case and controversy existed between these plaintiffs and defendants and affirmed the district court’s holding that Act 825 is unconstitutional in its entirety.
In addressing the issues before this en banc court, we first take note that the panel opinion’s jurisdictional holding rested primarily on the Ex parte Young exception to the Eleventh Amendment. It is, of course, one of the purposes of taking a case en banc to clarify the^ law when a “panel decision conflicts with a decision of the United States Supreme Court” or the case “involves one or more questions of exceptional importance.” Fed.RApp.P. 35(b)(1). Because the panel opinion erroneously applied established Eleventh Amendment jurisprudence, and because it was the focus of its jurisdictional holdings, we first address those panel errors before turning to the more basic question of whether this case presents an Article III case or controversy.
Ill
The crux of the Eleventh Amendment issue in this case is whether the named defendants, Louisiana’s Governor and At[411]*411torney General, have the requisite “connection” to the statutory scheme to remove the Eleventh Amendment barrier to suits brought in federal court against the State. We first say a very brief word about the historical and constitutional forces that underlie the Eleventh Amendment.
The Eleventh Amendment was adopted in 1798 in direct response to the Supreme Court’s decision in Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 U.S. (2 Dali.) 419, 1 L.Ed. 440 (1793), holding that the State of Georgia could properly be called to defend itself in federal court against a citizen’s suit. The alacrity with which Congress and the states approved the Eleventh Amendment to nullify Chisholm evinces the absolutely certain and fundamental respect the early fathers demanded the federal courts pay to the sovereignty of the several states.7 Although the attention given to the Eleventh Amendment has waxed and waned in the two hundred years since its adoption, the importance of it as a structural definition of our constitutional system has never been doubted. Thus, the Supreme Court recently reemphasized that this structural principle remains intact in Alden v. Maine, 527 U.S. 706, 713, 119 S.Ct. 2240, 144 L.Ed.2d 636 (1999). There, the Court stated that “as the Constitution’s structure, and its history, and the authoritative interpretations by this Court make clear, the States’ immunity from suit is a fundamental aspect of the sovereignty which the States enjoyed before the ratifications of the Constitution, and which they retain today.”8 Indeed, it is “a settled doctrinal understanding, consistent with the leading advocates of the Constitution’s ratification, that sovereign immunity derives not from the Eleventh Amendment but from the structure of the original Constitution itself.” Id. at 728, 119 S.Ct. 2240.
It is against this background of the overriding importance of the Eleventh Amendment in limiting the power of the federal courts over the sovereignty of the several states, that we now consider whether the facts of this appeal can fit into the exception carved from the Eleventh Amendment in Ex parte Young, so as to allow the federal courts to enjoin Act 825.
IV
A
The Eleventh Amendment bars suits by private citizens against a state in federal court, irrespective of the nature of the relief requested. See Hutto v. Finney, 437 U.S. 678, 700, 98 S.Ct. 2565, 57 L.Ed.2d 522 (1978). A plaintiff may not avoid this bar simply by naming an individual state officer as a party in lieu of the State. Yet, few rules are without exceptions, and the exception to this rule allows suits against state officials for the purpose of enjoining the enforcement of an unconstitutional state statute. This exception rests on the fiction of Ex parte Young— that because a sovereign state cannot commit an unconstitutional act, a state official enforcing an unconstitutional act is not acting for the sovereign state and therefore is not protected by the Eleventh Amendment. Indeed, the Eleventh Amendment inquiry today turns on a proper interpretation and application of the Supreme Court’s holding in Young.
Young, in relevant part, reads:
If, because they were law officers of the state, a case could be made for ... testing the constitutionality of the statute, by an injunction suit brought against them, then the constitutionality of every act passed by the legislature [412]*412could be tested by a suit against the governor and the attorney general.... That would be a very convenient way for obtaining a speedy judicial determination of ... constitutional law ..., but it is a mode which cannot be applied to the states ... consistently with the fundamental principle that they cannot, without their assent, be brought into any court at the suit of private persons ... In making an officer of the state a party defendant in a suit to enjoin the enforcement of an act alleged to be unconstitutional, ... such officer must have some connection with the enforcement of the act, or else it is merely making ... the state a party.
209 U.S. at 157, 28 S.Ct. 441 (emphasis added).
The principle of Young grew out of two predecessor cases, and can best be understood by reference to Smyth v. Ames, 169 U.S. 466, 18 S.Ct. 418, 42 L.Ed. 819 (1898), and Fitts v. McGhee, 172 U.S. 516,19 S.Ct. 269, 43 L.Ed. 535 (1899). We begin'with a discussion of these two decisions before addressing Young and its progeny.
B
In Smyth, the plaintiffs challenged the constitutionality of a Nebraska act regulating railroad rates for the transportation of freight and establishing penalties for violations of the act. The statute authorized the assessment of substantial fines by state authorities in addition to private liability. See Smyth, 169 U.S. at 476, 18 S.Ct. 418. The plaintiffs named officers of the State as defendants. The defendants contested the federal court’s jurisdiction on the grounds “that these suits are, in effect, suits against the state, of which the circuit court of the United States cannot take jurisdiction consistently with the eleventh amendment.” 169 U.S. at 518, 18 S.Ct. 418. After holding that “a suit against individuals for the purpose of preventing them as officers of a state from enforcing an unconstitutional enactment to the injury of the rights of the plaintiff is not a suit against the state within the meaning of [the eleventh] amendment,” the court assumed jurisdiction of the case and struck down the law. Id. at 519, 18 S.Ct. 418.9
Although Smyth did not raise the question of how close a connection is required between the defendant state officers and the enforcement of the act, the Supreme Court elaborated on the principle when the question was presented the following year in Fitts.10 There, the court was faced with a constitutional challenge to an Alabama act that prescribed certain maximum rates of toll to be charged on a Tennessee river bridge. The act provided that, if the maximum rate was exceeded, the aggrieved party could recover twenty dollars per infraction from the offender. 172 U.S. at 516, 19 S.Ct. 269. The plaintiffs, arguing that the rates of toll were “arbitrary” and “unreasonable” and constituted a deprivation of property, sued the governor and attorney general of Alabama as defendants and requested injunctive relief. The defendants moved “that the bill be dismissed upon the ground that the suit was one against the state, and prohibited by the constitution of the United States.” Id. at 518, 19 S.Ct. 269.
In concluding that the suit against the governor and attorney general was effec[413]*413tively a suit against the state and thus barred by the Eleventh Amendment, the Supreme Court reasoned that neither the governor nor the attorney general “appear[s] to have been charged by law with any special duty in connection with the act.” Id. at 529, 19 S.Ct. 269. The court distinguished other cases in which it had exercised jurisdiction (including Smyth) by noting that “the defendants in each of those cases were officers of the state, specially charged with the execution of a state enactment alleged to be unconstitutional.” Id. (emphasis added). Thus, in Fitts, the Supreme Court articulated the requirement that there be a “close” connection or a “special relation” between the statute and the defendant state officer’s duty before the Eleventh Amendment bar could be overcome:
There is a wide difference between a suit against individuals, holding official positions under a state, to prevent them, under the sanction of an unconstitutional statute, from committing by some positive act a wrong or trespass, and a suit against officers of a state merely to test the constitutionality of a state statute, in the enforcement of which those officers will act only by formal judicial proceedings in the courts of the state. In the present case, as we have said, neither of the state officers named held any special relation to the particular statute alleged to be unconstitutional. They were not expressly directed to see to its enforcement.
Id. at 529-30, 19 S.Ct. 269 (emphasis added). The court rationalized this relationship requirement by reference to the core constitutional principle embodied in the Eleventh Amendment:
If, because they were law officers of the state, a case could be made for the purpose of testing the constitutionality of the statute ... then the constitutionality of every act passed by the legislature could be tested by a suit against the governor and the attorney general, based upon the theory that the former, as the executive of the state, was, in a general sense, charged with the execution of all its laws, and the latter, as attorney general, might represent the state in litigation involving the enforcement of its statutes. This would be a very convenient way for obtaining a speedy judicial determination of questions of constitutional law ... but it is a mode which cannot be applied to the states of the Union consistently with the fundamental principle that they cannot, without their assent, be brought into any court at the suit of private persons.
Id. at 530, 19 S.Ct. 269. Thus, Fitts illuminated the important precept that allowing state officers to be sued in lieu of the State absent some “special connection” would permit the narrow exception to swallow the fundamental, constitutionally-based rule. It was upon this foundation that the Young doctrine was constructed.
C
In Young, the plaintiffs challenged a Minnesota statute that created a railroad commission, which executed an order fixing the rates various railroad companies could charge for the carriage of merchandise. 209 U.S. at 127, 28 S.Ct. 441. The legislature delineated specific penalties for violations of such railroad regulations, including fines and possible imprisonment.11 The attorney general, Edward T. Young, was named as a defendant in the suit, which challenged the constitutionality of the series of state acts regulating the railroad companies.12 Specifically, the [414]*414plaintiffs requested “[appropriate relief by injunction against the action of the defendant Young.” Id. at 131, 28 S.Ct. 441. Young asserted that the federal court had no jurisdiction over him as attorney general because the suit was, in effect, against the state of Minnesota and barred by the Eleventh Amendment. Nevertheless, the federal court issued a temporary injunction against Young, enjoining him “from taking or instituting any action or proceeding to enforce the penalties and remedies specified in the act.” Id. at 132, 28 S.Ct. 441. Young ignored the court order and immediately filed a mandamus action in state court to compel the railroad’s compliance with the state law. Young was held in contempt by the federal court and taken into custody. He then petitioned for habeas corpus to the United States Supreme Court, asserting that the federal court injunction violated the Eleventh Amendment. The Supreme Court was thus required to determine whether Young, as a state officer, could be sued in federal court despite the Eleventh Amendment bar.
The court determined that the Eleventh Amendment did not bar a federal court injunction against the enforcement of the state statute. It held that Young, as attorney general, could properly be enjoined in federal court from enforcing unconstitutional state penalties against the railroad. In so holding, the court stated:
The various authorities we have referred to furnish ample justification for the assertion that individuals who, as officers of the state, are clothed with some duty in regard to the enforcement of the laws of the state, and who threaten and are about to commence proceedings, either of a civil or criminal nature, to enforce against parties affected [by] an unconstitutional act, violating the Federal Constitution, may be enjoined by a Federal court of equity from such action.
Id. at 155-56, 28 S.Ct. 441 (emphasis added). Finding that Young possessed such enforcement authority over the acts in question, and recognizing his clear threat to exercise said authority under alleged unconstitutional state law,13 the court concluded that the Eleventh Amendment was no barrier to the suit.14 In authorizing the suit against Young, the court distinguished the earlier finding of no jurisdiction in Fitts by noting that, in that case, the penalties for disobeying the act were to be collected by the individuals who were overcharged and “[n]o officer of the state had any official connection with the recovery of such penalties.” Id. at 156, 28 S.Ct. 441.
Thus, Young solidified the doctrine that state officers could be sued in federal court despite the Eleventh Amendment, while simultaneously emphasizing the requirements that the officers have “some connection with the enforcement of the act” in question or be “specially charged with the duty to enforce the statute” and be threat[415]*415ening to exercise that duty. Id. at 157, 158, 28 S.Ct. 441.15
D
Young was decided almost 100 years ago. From its earliest years until the present, it has spawned numerous cases upholding, explaining, and recognizing its fundamental principle: that the defendant state official must have some enforcement connection with the challenged statute. Two years after Young, the Supreme Court in Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Andrews, 216 U.S. 165, 80 S.Ct. 286, 54 L.Ed. 430 (1910), again upheld a suit against a state official that enjoined enforcement of a state act. The act in question, which regulated fees to be paid by foreign corporations, declared that the defendant state officials “would, unless restrained by the order of the court, institute numerous actions, as they had threatened to do, for the recovery of the penalties aforesaid.” Id. at 166, 30 S.Ct. 286. Concluding that the recent Young decision was “precisely applicable to the case at bar,” the court found sufficient connection between the defendant state officials and the challenged statute, stating:
The statute specifically charges the prosecuting attorneys with the duty of bringing actions to recover the penalties.It is averred in the bill, and admitted by the demurrer, that they threatened and were about to commence proceedings for that purpose.
Id. Western Union, therefore, reinforced the interpretation that Young requires both a close connection between the official and the act and the threatening or com-meneement of enforcement proceedings by the official.16
More recently, other circuit courts have applied the Young guidelines when adjudicating the Eleventh Amendment question raised in this appeal. In Children’s Healthcare v. Deters, 92 F.3d 1412 (6th Cir.1996), the plaintiffs brought a civil rights action against the Ohio Attorney General and state prosecutors. The suit challenged statutes that provided exemptions from the duty to provide adequate care for children for persons who treat children by spiritual means. The court rejected federal court jurisdiction over the matter, reaffirming that “Young does not apply when a defendant state official has neither enforced nor threatened to enforce the allegedly unconstitutional state statute.” Id. at 1415. The requirement that there be some actual or threatened enforcement action before Young applies has been repeatedly applied by the federal courts. See also 1st Westco Corp. v. School Dist. of Philadelphia, 6 F.3d 108, 113 (3d Cir.1993) (citing Rode v. Dellarciprete, 845 F.2d 1195, 1209 n. 9 (3d Cir.1988)); Long v. Van de Kamp, 961 F.2d 151, 152 (9th Cir.1992); Kelley v. Metropolitan County Bd. of Educ., 836 F.2d 986, 990-91 (6th Cir.1987).
Other federal courts have invoked Young’s, rationale when ascertaining the applicability of this narrow Eleventh Amendment exception. In Gras v. Stevens, 415 F.Supp. 1148 (S.D.N.Y.1976), Judge Friendly rejected the notion that a governor’s general duty to “take care that the laws are faithfully executed” is sufficient connection under Young and Fitts to dissolve the Eleventh Amendment bar. [416]*416Id. at 1151-52. The court noted that “[i]n our view this would extend Ex parte Young beyond anything which the Supreme Court intended or has subsequently held.” Id. at 1152.
As late as 2001, the Fourth, Ninth, Eleventh and Seventh Circuits rearticulated the criteria of Young. In Lytle v. Griffith, 240 F.3d 404, 412 (4th Cir.2001), the Fourth Circuit, in remanding the case to determine whether the defendant Governor had the requisite connection to the challenged law, noted that “[t]he Young exception is limited, however, by its requirement that named state officials bear a special relation to the challenged statute.” In Snoeck v. Brussa, 153 F.3d 984 (9th Cir.1998), the Ninth Circuit found that the Eleventh Amendment barred a claim against the Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline, emphasizing that compliance with the requirements of Young “must be determined under state law depending on whether and under what circumstances a particular defendant has a connection with the challenged state law.” Id. at 986. The court concluded that, “[u]nder Nevada law, the Commission has no enforcement power, and therefore, it has no connection to the enforcement of the challenged law as required under Ex Parte Young.” Id. at 987.
Moreover, in Summit Medical Associates, P.C. v. Pryor, 180 F.3d 1326 (11th Cir.1999), the Eleventh Circuit took note of the private civil enforcement provision of the statute in question and stated that “the doctrine of Ex paHe Young cannot operate as an exception to Alabama’s sovereign immunity where no defendant has any connection to the enforcement of the challenged law.” Id. at 1341. Finally, the Seventh Circuit in Hope Clinic v. Ryan, 195 F.3d 857 (7th Cir.1999), vacated on other grounds by 530 U.S. 1271, 120 S.Ct. 2738, 147 L.Ed.2d 1001 (2000), also observed that the statute in question was to be enforced in private litigation: “[T]he states’ Attorneys General and local prosecutors have nothing to do Relief against the public officials therefore would be pointless even if the civil-liability provisions were problematic.” Id. at 875.
E
The Supreme Court’s decision in Young, appraised in the light of its predecessors Smyth and Fitts and its progeny, is thus properly understood to create a precise exception to the general bar against suing states in federal fora. This exception only applies when the named defendant state officials have some connection with the enforcement of the act and “threaten and are about to commence proceedings” to enforce the unconstitutional act. Young, 209 U.S. at 155-56, 28 S.Ct. 441.
We now consider the application of the Young principle to the facts in the case before us.
V
The present inquiry is how to read and apply the requirement that the defendants have some connection with the enforcement of the Act. Specifically, the question raised before this en banc court is whether the Young fiction requires that the defendant state official have some enforcement -powers with respect to the particular statute at issue, or whether the official need have no such enforcement powers and only need be charged with the general authority and responsibility to see that all of the laws of the state be faithfully executed.
As we have pointed out, the Young principle teaches that it is not merely the general duty to see that the laws of the state are implemented that substantiates the required “connection,” but the particular duty to enforce the statute in question and a demonstrated willingness to exercise that duty. For a duty found in the general laws to constitute a sufficient connection, it must “include!] [417]*417the right and the power to enforce the statutes of the state, including, of course, the act in question ...” Id. at 161, 28 S.Ct. 441 (emphasis added). Thus, any probe into the existence of a Young exception should gauge (1) the ability of the official to enforce the statute at issue under his statutory or constitutional powers, and (2) the demonstrated willingness of the official to enforce the statute.17
Although the panel opinion addressed the connection of the defendants to the law in question, it nevertheless pursued a different, and we believe, seriously erroneous course. The panel applied a two-part formula to assess whether sufficient “connection” exists to warrant waiver of the Eleventh Amendment protection: (1) an analysis of “what powers the defendants wield to enforce the law in question,” and (2) consideration of “the nature of the law and its place on the continuum between public regulation and private action.” Okpalobi, 190 F.3d at 346.18 We address, in turn, the flaws in each part of the panel’s analysis.
After noting at the outset that “Act 825, on its face, does not direct the State or its officers to do anything,” the panel nevertheless concluded “that the Governor and the Attorney General have powers and duties under state law sufficient to meet the minimum requirements under the Eleventh Amendment.” Id. at 347.19 The basis for this conclusion was the assertion that a mere duty to uphold the laws of the state is sufficient under Young to authorize an Eleventh Amendment waiver. The panel stated that its conclusion is discernible from a proper reading of Young and Smyth, noting that, while the Fitts Court required a “close” connection or a “special charge” between the statute and the state officer’s duty, the Young Court adopted the more relaxed connection requirements outlined in Smyth.20
In essence, the panel suggests that there is some conflict between Fitts, on the one hand, and Smyth and Young, noting that “[t]o the extent that there is tension between Fitts’s focus on the state officials’ express enforcement power and the later articulation in Young, we are controlled by the Smyth doctrine and the unequivocal holding of Young that a state officer’s connection with the enforcement of the challenged act can ‘[arise] out of the general law ... so long as it exists.’ ” Id. at 344 (citing Young, 209 U.S. at 157, 28 S.Ct. 441). We do not, however, find this tension in the Smyth-Fitts-Young triad. The resolution in each of these three cases was dictated, not by the application of a different legal rule, but by the particular statutes and the connection to those statutes of the defendant state officials. The challenged statutes in Young and Smyth [418]*418(wherein the defendants had enforcement powers over the railway acts) stand in sharp contrast to the statute in Fitts (wherein the defendants were granted no enforcement powers whatsoever with respect to the statute).21 Fitts involved the establishment of toll rates for a single bridge. The act in question was self-enforcing; if the operators of the bridge charged an excessive toll, the statute entitled the aggrieved to sue for twenty dollars.22 Thus, the court in Young characterized the Fitts statute as one in which
[n]o officer of the state had any official connection with the recovery of such penalties.... As no state officer who was made a party bore any close official connection with the act fixing the tolls, the making of such officer a party defendant was a simple effort to test the constitutionality of such act in that way, and there is no principle upon which it could be done. A state superintendent of schools might as well have been made a party.
Id. at 156, 28 S.Ct. 441. In differentiating the “general duty” authority of the officials in Fitts, which the court found was insufficient to dissolve the Eleventh Amendment bar, the Young Court noted that “[t]he officers in the Fitts case occupied the position of having no duty at all with regard to the act ...” 209 U.S. at 158, 28 S.Ct. 441. The court then referenced with approval a distinction noted by the court in Fitts, wherein the facts in Fitts were clearly distinguished from the facts in Smyth and Reagan v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Co., 154 U.S. 362, 14 S.Ct. 1047, 38 L.Ed. 1014 (1894):
In [Smyth and Reagan] the only wrong or injury or trespass involved was the threatened commencement of suits to enforce the statute as to rates, and the threat of such commencement was in each case regarded as sufficient to authorize the issuing of an injunction to prevent the same. The threat to commence those suits under such circumstances was therefore necessarily held to be equivalent to any other threatened wrong or injury to the property of a plaintiff which had theretofore been held sufficient to authorize the suit against the officer.
Young, 209 U.S. at 158, 28 S.Ct. 441.23
Considering the obvious enforcement potential that the defendant Young had under the Minnesota statute, the panel’s interpretation of the “some connection” language as necessitating only an undefined, inchoate, general duty to see that all of the laws of the state are enforced exceeded any reasonable interpretation of Young. Indeed, Young does not reject the “special charge” language in Fitts;24 instead, Young merely allows the [419]*419“special charge” to be drawn implicitly from the laws of the state, rather than requiring that it be stated explicitly in the challenged statute. Thus, the correct interpretation of Young concludes that no such special charge need be found directly in the challenged statute to meet the requisite “some connection” so long as there is sufficient indicia of the defendant’s enforcement powers found elsewhere in the laws of the state.25 This interpretation finds support in the following language in Young:
It has not, however, been held that it was necessary that such duty should be declared in the same act which is to be enforced. In some cases, it is true, the duty of enforcement has been so imposed ... but that may possibly make the duty more clear; if it otherwise ex-istís] it is equally efficacious.
209 U.S. at 157, 28 S.Ct. 441.
Thus, the panel erred by not recognizing that Fitts’s “special charge” requirement is an essential part of Young’s holding. See also Gras, 415 F.Supp. at 1151 (characterizing the statute in Young as “implicitly charging] [the attorney general] by statute with the duty of collecting an allegedly unconstitutional tax.”). This failing led to the panel’s conclusion that the general charge of the governor and attorney general to implement and enforce all of the laws of the state satisfies the requirements of Young.
In sum, Young does not minimize the need to find an actual enforcement connection — some enforcement power or act that can be enjoined — between the defendant official and the challenged statute. Instead, it provides that this connection can be found implicitly elsewhere in the laws of the state, apart from the challenged statute, so long as those duties have the same effect as a “special charge” in the statute.
We turn now to the second prong of the panel’s test — the place of Act 825 on a public-to-private “continuum.” The panel concluded that Act 825 implicates “public” action because “the purpose and effect of the Act is to prevent women from obtaining legal abortion.” Okpalobi 190 F.3d at 347. This continuum element was derived from Allied Artists Pictures Corp. v. Rhodes, 473 F.Supp. 560 (S.D.Ohio 1979), aff'd 679 F.2d 656, 665 n. 5 (6th Cir.1982) (holding that statutory regulation of private contracting with respect to movies amounted to state regulation of movie producers and distributors). Notwithstanding the equivocal nature of Allied Artists’ “continuum” holding,26 the majority seized [420]*420upon this result and compared it to an act affecting availability of abortion services: “We place such interference [with abortion rights] on the Allied continuum near the end closest to laws respecting the voting rights of citizens [see Socialist Workers Party v. Rockefeller, 314 F.Supp. 984 (S.D.N.Y.1970), aff'd, 400 U.S. 806, 91 S.Ct. 65, 27 L.Ed.2d 38 (1970)], rather than alongside procedural aspects of domestic relations law [see Gras, 415 F.Supp.1148].” Okpalobi, 190 F.3d at 347.
The first weakness in the panel’s use of this analysis to find a sufficient connection between the state officials and Act 825 is its almost exclusive reliance on Allied Artists. The sum total of the panel’s support lies in two district court cases, Allied Artists and Federal National Mortgage. Allied Artists is not only not binding on this circuit, but it seems to have been rejected as binding authority in its own circuit. See Children’s Healthcare, 92 F.3d at 1414-15, 1416; see also Kelley v. Metropolitan County Bd. Of Educ., 836 F.2d 986, 990-91 (6th Cir.1987). In Children’s Healthcare, the Sixth Circuit highlighted Allied Artists’ tension with Supreme Court jurisprudence, apparently rejecting the holding that “general duty” provisions are sufficient for purposes of Eleventh Amendment waiver. See 92 F.3d at 1416. See also Kelley, 836 F.2d at 990-91. Furthermore, even Allied Artists — the panel’s sole support for its “continuum” prong — does not support the panel’s argument as to the degree of “connection” required under Young. Allied Artists states:
Although I disagree with Gras insofar as it declines to find Young enforcement power in the governor’s general duty to see to the execution of state laws, I agree with the Oras result. Furthermore, I believe to be accurate Judge Friendly’s evaluation that the cases which have permitted a governor to be joined as a defendant concerned the enforcement of programs, civil or criminal, dealing with the relations between the state and the individual. This valid limitation serves to preclude parties from testing the constitutionality of state legislation by simply naming the governor as defendant, a practice which if unchecked would effectively eviscerate the Eleventh Amendment. Thus, to satisfy the Young fiction, as I understand it, not only must there be a state officer who has a connection imth the enforcement of the challenged statute, but there must also be a real, not ephemeral, likelihood or realistic potential that the connection [421]*421will be employed against plaintiffs’ interests.
473 F.Supp. at 568 (emphasis added). Thus, the panel’s reliance on Allied Artists places it in the awkward position of relying on a case in support of the second part of its analysis when that case rejects the panel’s conclusion as to the first part.
Second, the panel’s approach ignores the “state/individual” vs. “predominately private/private” distinction set forth in Gras: “[These cases finding no Eleventh Amendment immunity] have been concerned with the enforcement of programs, civil or criminal, dealing with the relations between the state and the individual ...” 415 F.Supp. at 1152. Indeed, the propriety of this distinction was echoed in Allied Artists. See 473 F.Supp. at 568. The panel’s thin retort is simply that Act 825 is “designed to implement and serve the public interest of the state.” Okpabbi, 190 F.3d at 347 (citation omitted). This tautological reasoning, however, can easily be applied to every statute: What statute of general application is not so designed? Even those statutes on the opposite end of the continuum (e.g., domestic relations law in Gras) are presumably enacted to serve the public’s interest in the private ordering of individuals. We therefore doubt whether this analysis serves any real use in determining whether a case improperly tests the constitutionality of a state statute. If Act 825, a private tort statute, is on the public interest side of the continuum, almost anything can be said to affect the public interest. For this and other reasons, we reject the panel’s use of this rationale to resolve the Eleventh Amendment question.
In sum, the panel generated a new two-pronged test spun out of hardly more than a wisp of authority (a single district court’s ruling), while ignoring critical factors examined by virtually all prior Eleventh Amendment jurisprudence. For example, we note that the panel’s reading failed to note that the necessary fiction of Young requires that the defendant state official be acting, threatening to act, or at least have the ability to act. Young, 209 U.S. at 159, 28 S.Ct. 441 (noting that the fiction applies “where an official claims to be acting under the authority of the state.”). It is this unconstitutional conduct, or at least the ability to engage in the unconstitutional conduct, that makes him no longer a representative of the sovereign. Without at least the ability to commit the unconstitutional act by the official defendant, the fiction cannot be sustained. See, e.g., Fitts, 172 U.S. at 530, 19 S.Ct. 269; Children’s Healthcare, 92 F.3d at 1415-16. Indeed, if there is no act, or potential act, of the state official to enjoin, an injunction would be utterly meaningless. Here, there is no act, no threat to act, and no ability to act.
VI
We take a moment now to address the dissent’s view of the Eleventh Amendment question in this case. The dissent substantially departs from the panel majority opinion, abandoning many of the views expressed therein and raising theories apparently dismissed by the plaintiff-appellees.27 The panel opinion, as we have noted, exhibited as its centerpiece Allied Artists, a twenty year old Ohio district court case. The dissent now jettisons Allied Artists as support for the panel’s novel position and turns to Title 40 of the Louisiana Revised Statutes, a statutory scheme that attempts to review, regulate, oversee, and partially fund medical malpractice claims. See 22C La.Rev.Stat. Ann. § 40:1299. It quickly becomes clear, however, that Title 40 is an even less reliable ally than was Allied Art[422]*422ists for the position that these defendants have enforcement powers with regard to Act 825.
This is the essence of the dissent’s argument as best we understand it: Title 40 applies to all medical malpractice claims;28 the Patients Compensation Fund Oversight Board (“PCFOB”) must review all malpractice claims to determine if they qualify for the damage caps and other benefits provided by Title 40; this oversight authority means that the PCFOB would review all medical malpractice claims based on or related to abortion claims; the PCFOB would have discretionary authority to deny benefits of Title 40 to defendant doctors for procedures determined by the Board to be covered by Act 825; and, because the Governor appoints members of the PCFOB, and because appointees of the Attorney General must approve certain payments ultimately determined to be payable from the Self-Insurance Fund — all the aforementioned acts authorized by Title 40 — each of the defendants has enforcement powers with respect to Act 825. The dissent makes this argument notwithstanding the express provision of Act 825 that “[t]he laws governing medical malpractice or limitations of liability thereof provided in Title 40 of the Louisiana Revised Statutes of 1950 are not applicable to this Section.” See § 2800.12(C)(2) (emphasis added).29 Furthermore, the dissent makes this argument even though no official connected with Title 40 has been named as a defendant in this case.
Very little need be said about this patently untenable argument. We need not draw attention to the fact that, even under the dissent’s argument) the defendants who have been sued in this case have no enforcement connection with Title 40, much less the statute at issue (Act 825). The most obvious — and fatal' — flaw in the dissent’s effort to connect Act 825 to Title 40 is that the argument is premised and dependent upon a plainly false assumption: the assumption that the agencies operating under Title 40 have jurisdiction, authority, or discretion ever to review or consider any claims brought under Act 825. Act 825 creates a specific cause of action; Act 825 provides that claims brought under the statute are not subject to Title 40; consequently, any governmental bodies or agents acting under Title 40 have no authority or jurisdiction — that is, enforcement powers — over claims brought under Act 825. In short, the foundation of the dissent’s argument, to wit, that “[ujnder Title 40’s medical malpractice system, all malpractice claims against "private and public health care providers must be reviewed by a medical review panel,” is false — the actual fact being that Title 40 applies to all medical malpractice claims except those brought pursuant to Act 825. There is therefore no connection between Title 40 and Act 825. In concluding, however, we emphasize that, notwithstanding the dissent’s newest theory that attempts to relate Act 825 to Title 40, we should not be diverted from the crucial and determinative consideration under Ex parte Young and its progeny: These defendants have no ability to enforce Act 825, a purely private tort statute, which can be invoked only by private litigants.
We turn now to comment on the various authorities addressed by the dissent. We [423]*423would first note that the dissent fails to cite any case in which a federal court enjoined enforcement of a statute even remotely like Act 825 — that is, one with private civil, but no criminal penalties. In every case cited by the dissent to support its claim that an injunction was proper in this case, there were simply no Eleventh Amendment or Article III problems that would bar the court from asserting jurisdiction over the complaint for this reason: federal jurisdiction plainly existed over the claims for injunctive relief to strike the criminal provisions of the statutes at issue in those cases.30 When there were also civil provisions contained in these statutes they were, without analysis, swept up and bundled as one package with the struck criminal provisions. In no case cited by the dissent did the court address the civil provisions separately under an Ex parte Young analysis, as we are called upon to do today. Indeed, in assessing the value of those cases to the issues before us today, we must conclude that it is determinative that these cases fail to even mention Ex parte Young.
In sum, nothing argued or cited by the dissent suggests that there is any enforcement connection between these defendants — the Governor and the Attorney General — and Act 825 that satisfies either of the requirements of Ex parte Young.31 [424]*424It is clear therefore to this en banc court, and we hold, alternatively, that the defendants in this case enjoy Eleventh Amendment immunity from this suit.32
VII
Now that we have addressed the Eleventh Amendment issues that have been presented in this case, we turn to the question of jurisdiction under Article III. Recently, the Supreme Court, when confronted with both an Eleventh Amendment and an Article III question, chose to decide the case based on Article III jurisdiction. See Calderon v. Ashmus, 523 U.S. 740, 745, 118 S.Ct. 1694, 140 L.Ed.2d 970 (1998) (“[We] have decided that we must first address whether this action for a declaratory judgment is the sort of ‘Article III’ ‘case or controversy’ to which federal courts are limited.”).33 Calderon does not hold that a court always must, or even [425]*425always should, decide the Article III issues before addressing Eleventh Amendment issues. Nevertheless, given that the Supreme Court has followed this path in a case that has similarities to today’s case, it is not inappropriate for us to examine, and, if thereby warranted, to decide this case based on the limitations Article III imposes on federal courts.
Under Article III of the Constitution, the federal courts have jurisdiction over a claim between a plaintiff and a defendant only if it presents a “case or controversy.” This is a “bedrock requirement.” Raines v. Byrd, 521 U.S. 811, 818, 117 S.Ct. 2312, 138 L.Ed.2d 849 (1997). In this way, the power granted to federal courts under Article III “is not an unconditioned authority to determine the constitutionality of legislative or executive acts.” Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United For Separation of Church and State, Inc., 454 U.S. 464, 471, 102 S.Ct. 752, 70 L.Ed.2d 700 (1982).
In order to establish a ease or controversy sufficient to give a federal court jurisdiction over their claims, plaintiffs must satisfy three criteria. See Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992). First, they must show that they have suffered, or are about to suffer, an “injury in fact.” Second, “there must be a causal, connection between the injury and the conduct complained of.” Third, “it must be likely, as opposed to merely speculative, that the injury will be redressed by a favorable decision.” Id. (citation omitted). If any one of these three elements — injury, causation, and redressability-is absent, plaintiffs have no standing in federal court under Article III of the constitution to assert their claim.
In the district court, the defendants did not raise the question of whether the plaintiffs had an Article III case or controversy with them, the Governor and the Attorney General, and the district court did not consider this jurisdictional question. The defendants argued only that the plaintiff doctors and clinics lacked standing to pursue their patients’ rights. In rejecting that contention, the district court held that “[g]iven the relationship between the inter-venors and their patients, and given the obstacles which prevent pregnant women from challenging this statute, including a desire for privacy and the imminent mootness of their claims, intervenors may assert third party standing and raise the right of their patients.” Okpalobi v. Foster, 981 F.Supp. 977, 980 (E.D.La.1998). The panel upheld that determination, finding that “the Plaintiffs have alleged an injury in fact, including components of causation and redressability, sufficient to make their claim a case or controversy subject to the federal courts’ Article III jurisdiction.” Okpalobi, 190 F.3d at 350. The panel further determined that plaintiffs could properly assert third-party standing on behalf of their female patients because the plaintiffs “have the requisite commonality and congruence with their patients’ interests to establish standing to assert their right to make abortion decisions free of undue burden by the State of Louisiana.” Id. at 353.
In addressing the question of federal jurisdiction under Article III, the panel, [426]*426disregarding that the defendants (the Governor and the Attorney General) had caused no injury to the plaintiffs and could never themselves cause any injury under the private civil scheme, nevertheless concluded that, because “[i]t is well established that a claim of direct economic harm visited on abortion providers by a statute is adequate to satisfy the injury-in-fact requirement,” the plaintiffs could assert standing for themselves. Id. at 350. Furthermore, the panel essentially passed over the causation and redressability requirements, stating only:
We are convinced that Article III does not require a plaintiff to plead or prove that a defendant state official has enforced or threatened to enforce a statute in order to meet the case or controversy requirement when that statute is immediately and coercively self-enforcing.
Id. at 349.
The central weakness of the panel’s argument, and the fatal flaw of the dissent’s argument that follows this opinion, is that, notwithstanding that the defendants are powerless to enforce Act 825 against the plaintiffs (or to prevent any threatened injury from its enforcement), the plaintiffs yet must show (1) how these impotent defendants play a causal role in the plaintiffs’ injury and (2) how these defendants can redress their alleged actual or threatened injury. The panel’s reference to the self-enforcing nature of Act 825 is inapposite to the analysis of whether the plaintiffs have any controversy with these defendants. That is to say, the panel confuses the statute’s immediate coercive effect on the plaintiffs witfj any coercive effect that might be applied by the defendants — that is, the Governor and the Attorney General. This confusion allows the panel to state further: “The Plaintiffs’ assertion that they will be forced to discontinue offering legal abortions to patients because of the untenable risks of unlimited civil liability under an unconstitutional Act, sets forth a justiciable case or controversy between the plaintiffs and the Governor and Attorney General of Louisiana.” Id. Once the coercive impact of the statute (coercive in that it exposes plaintiffs to unlimited tort liability by individual plaintiffs) is understood to be distinct from the coercive power of state officials (for example, if the State could institute criminal or civil proceedings under the Act), the panel’s finding of causation here is without a basis. The panel’s own-citation to Lujan recognizes that Article III requires “a causal connection between the injury and the conduct complained of ... ” 504 U.S. at 560-61, 112 S.Ct. 2130 (emphasis added)— that is, here, a connection between the unwarranted monetary judgment (the injury) and the prosecution of a lawsuit under Act 825 by a private civil litigant (the conduct). The plaintiffs have never suggested that any act of the defendants has caused, will cause, or could possibly cause any injury to them. The requirements of Lujan are entirely consistent with the long-standing rule that a plaintiff may not sue a state official who is without any power to enforce the complained-of statute. See Muskrat v. United States, 219 U.S. 346, 31 S.Ct. 250, 55 L.Ed. 246 (1911) (holding that the United States as defendant had no interest adverse to the claimants); Gritts v. Fisher, 224 U.S. 640, 32 S.Ct. 580, 56 L.Ed. 928 (1912) (finding that the defendant state official was charged with specific duties to enforce the challenged statute and was therefore sufficiently adverse to the plaintiffs to create an Article III controversy).
The plaintiffs also fail to satisfy the “redressability” requirement of the case or controversy analysis. For all practical purposes, the injunction granted by the district court is utterly meaningless.34 [427]*427The governor and attorney general have no power to redress the asserted injuries. In fact, under Act 825, no state official has any duty or ability to do anything. The defendants have no authority to prevent a private plaintiff from invoking the statute in a civil suit.35 Nor do the defendants have any authority under the laws of Louisiana to order what cases the judiciary of Louisiana may hear or not hear. Because these defendants have no powers to redress the injuries alleged, the plaintiffs have no case or controversy with these defendants that will permit them to maintain this action in federal court. See Muskrat, 219 U.S. at 346, 31 S.Ct. 250.36
In addressing Article III jurisdiction, the dissent focuses on the injury component of the case or controversy requirement, arguing that this component has been “visibly relaxed” in abortion cases. We do not challenge that the plaintiffs are suffering a threatened injury. We only say that the injury alleged by the plaintiffs is not, and cannot possibly be, caused by the defendants — that is, these defendants will not file and prosecute a cause of action under Act 825 against these plaintiffs; > and that their injury cannot be redressed by these defendants' — 'that is, these defendants cannot prevent purely private litigants from filing and prosecuting a cause of action under Act 825 and cannot prevent the courts of Louisiana from processing and hearing these private tort cases.37 In this way, the dissent makes much the same argument — and thus incorporates the same fatal flaw — as did the panel opinion. It continues to confuse the coercive impact of the statute itself and the ability — or the absence of ability — of the Governor and Attorney General to cause or redress the impact of the statute on the plaintiffs.
Indeed, the dissent is silent on how the defendants cause the plaintiffs’ alleged injury. The only response the dissent seems to make concerning redressability is that the Governor can provide some relief to physicians sued under Act 825 by “ordering] his agents and subordinates to disregard Act 825 in reviewing civil claims against women’s health care providers and making their legal and factual recommendations as to liability and damages.” This argument is unavailing. First, this response overlooks the elemental fact that a state official cannot be enjoined to act in any way that is beyond his authority to act in the first place. If the defendant Governor or Attorney General has no authority under state law to issue a specific directive, then the plaintiff might as well sue any state officer who, in turn, could direct any other state officer to carry out the injunction orders; or, under the dissent’s reasoning, why not simply order the defendant Governor to decree that no court may entertain any suit brought under Act 825? The dissent, of course, cites no authority [428]*428for its assertion that the Governor is clothed with power to order the state agencies that administer Title 40 to act in a specified manner with respect to a class of cases. This is not to say that the administrators of Title 40 themselves could not be enjoined to do a particular act that was within their authority — but these plaintiffs must sue those individuals authorized to exercise the orders of the injunction.
Second, the redress sought by the plaintiffs’ complaint is to eliminate the initiation of any and all lawsuits under Act 825— there is nothing in their complaint indicating in any way that plaintiffs seek the limited liability benefits of Title 40 for lawsuits brought under Act 825. Like the entirety of the dissent’s “Title 40” argument, this suggestion makes its first appearance in the dissent that follows this opinion, notwithstanding that this case has been pending for nearly four years. The plaintiffs’ claim is not that Act 825 is constitutional so long as claims brought thereunder are subject to the provisions of Title 40. Indeed, the plaintiffs never mention Title 40, except to say that it is not applicable to any claims brought under Act 825. Their argument is that any cause of action alleged under Act 825 is barred as unconstitutional. Thus, there is no redress for the claimed injury resulting from the application of this unconstitutional statute— that is, the filing and prosecution of a private civil action under Act 825 — that can be provided by these defendants, even under this latest theory of redressability.
Third, we should point out, at the risk of being repetitive, that the matter of causation remains unsatisfied. At best, the Governor only appoints some of the administrators of Title 40, and the Attorney General appoints legal counsel for the Self-Insurance Fund. See La.Rev.Stat. Ann. §§ 39:5(A); 40:1299.44(D); 39:1533(B); 39:1535(B)(6). This appointive power of the defendants inflicts no injury on the plaintiffs. That is to say, it is not the Governor or the Attorney General who inflicts the claimed injury — it is the private plaintiff, bringing a private lawsuit under Act 825, who causes the injury of which the plaintiffs complain.
Thus, even if we take it as true that abortion cases are different from other cases concerning the requirements for injury for Article III purposes, it is in this way — causal connection and redressability — that the dissent’s authorities nevertheless remain lacking.38 In those cases, where the plaintiffs’ injury may not have been imminent, the defendants had the ability to cause and to redress the plaintiffs’ injuries.39 Here, that is plainly not [429]*429the case. Consequently, there is no case or controversy between these plaintiffs and defendants.
We therefore hold that the district court lacked Article III jurisdiction to hear this claim.
VIII
In sum, we hold that the plaintiffs have no case or controversy with these defendants and the district court’s judgment must be dismissed for lack of federal court jurisdiction under Article III of the Constitution. Furthermore, we have made clear in this en banc opinion that the defendants in this case enjoy Eleventh Amendment immunity from this suit and that the Ex parte Young exception to the Eleventh Amendment cannot be applied under these facts. We alternatively hold, therefore, that this suit is barred by the Eleventh Amendment.40
The judgment of the district court is
REVERSED, VACATED, and REMANDED for entry of judgment of dismissal.