The decision of the judges could have an impact on the law of millions of women to abort. Each state would be free to prohibit or authorize pregnancy interruptions.
Le Monde with AFP and Reuters
The Biden administration has announced Friday. She took the step, Monday, October 18, announcing that she had formally asked the Supreme Court of the United States to block an extremely restrictive law on texas abortion. This law prohibits abortion as soon as the heartbeat of the embryo are detectable, or at six weeks of pregnancy when most women still do not know their pregnancy, and does not provide exceptions in case of incest or rape. .
The Supreme Court of the United States guarantees since 1973, with the iconic judgment Roe Vs Wade, the right of women to abort, and then specified that it applied until the fetus is not viable, at twenty-two weeks of pregnancy.
But the Texas text provides a single device: it entrusts “exclusively” to citizens to enforce the measure by encouraging them to file a complaint against organizations or people who help women to abort illegally.
Judicial battle
The Supreme Court, where the conservative judges are the majority, had already been seized for the first time and therefore invoked these “new procedural issues” to refuse, the 1 September, to block the entry into force of the law. The federal government then entered the judicial arena, filing a complaint on his name against Texas.
The position of the Supreme Court in this case was perceived as a “right turn” of the high jurisdiction which has six conservative judges on nine, including three named by Donald Trump. On October 2, thousands of protesters came down in the US streets to defend the right to abortion.
On 6 October, a trial judge suspended the law, pending an examination on the merits. “This Tribunal will not allow this shocking deprivation of such an important right to continue one more day,” said Federal Judge Robert Pitman. Some clinics then resumed abortions beyond six weeks.
But the Attorney General of Texas, the Republican Ken Paxton, had appealed to the Federal Court of New Orleans, renowned for being one of the most conservative of the country, which gave it reason: two days later She invalidated the decision of Judge Pitman. The law remains for the moment in effect as long as the procedure continues. The Ministry of Justice is now asking the Supreme Court to replace Judge Pitman’s decision.
Half of the Americans could lose the right to abort
In recent years, laws comparable to that of Texas have been adopted by a dozen other Conservative States and invalidated in court because they were violating this case law.
The Supreme Court must also consider this fall a law of the Mississippi which prohibits abortion after fifteen weeks of pregnancy, and could take advantage of it to register black on white a turnaround of its jurisprudence.
If the Court had to invalidate the ROE vs Wade, each state would be free to prohibit or allow abortions. About 36 million women, in 26 states, nearly half of the Americans of childbearing age, would probably lose the right to abort, according to a report of Planned Parenthood (Family planning) published in early October.