It is now almost no longer possible to have a legal abortion in Texas due to a new law that came into force on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday. The text, signed in May by Republican Governor Greg Abbott, bans terminating any pregnancy once the embryo’s heartbeat is detected, about six weeks after the last period, when most women do not know. not even that they are pregnant.
More than 85% of abortions performed so far in Texas have taken place after this term, according to family planning organizations which, in recent days, have begun to refer their patients to neighboring US states. The law, which is part of an offensive by conservative states against the right to abortion, does not provide for an exception in cases of rape or incest, but only if the health of the pregnant woman is compromised.
Joe Biden strongly opposed to the law
“This sweeping law is a flagrant violation of constitutional law recognized in Roe v. Wade, ”US President Joe Biden wrote in a statement, referring to the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that guaranteed abortion rights in all states in America. “My government is very attached” to this right, “we will protect and defend it”, he added.
It “will greatly complicate women’s access to the health care they need, especially in communities of color or low income,” said Joe Biden. “And, scandalously, she delegates to private citizens the prosecution of those who could help” women to have an abortion, he notes.
Supreme Court inaction
The law could still be blocked by the Supreme Court of the United States, which was seized urgently Monday by defenders of the right to abortion. But, contrary to its custom, the High Court, where the conservative judges have a solid majority, did not rule before the date of entry into force of the text at midnight.
Now, “access to almost all abortions is cut off for millions of people. The impact is immediate and devastating, ”responded the powerful rights organization ACLU. The Court’s inaction “is a disaster for women in Texas,” added the Democratic leader of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, denouncing on Twitter “a radical law”.
A law operating on a system of denouncing citizens
Before Texas, twelve states, including Louisiana, passed legislation to ban abortions as soon as the embryo’s heartbeat is noticeable. These laws have all been overturned in court because they violate the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court, which recognized a right to abortion as long as the fetus is not viable, that is to say between 22 and 24 weeks of pregnancy. But Texas has worded its law differently: it is not up to the authorities to enforce the measure, but “exclusively” to citizens, encouraged to bring civil complaints against organizations or people who help women to have abortions.
The text provides that citizens who initiate proceedings receive at least $ 10,000 in “compensation” in the event of conviction and obtain the closure of the clinics in question. Critics of the text see it as a “bonus” for denouncing, but its defenders have already set up forms on the Internet to file “anonymous information”. For procedural reasons, this device makes it more difficult for the federal courts to intervene, which have so far refused to take action against the law. Critics of the text therefore had to go directly to the Supreme Court to ask it either to block it or to force the courts to do so.
A high court overhauled by Donald Trump
That the High Court did not act in time “does not mean the end of Roe v. Wade ”, underlines the professor of law Steve Vladeck in reference to the emblematic judgment of the Court of 1973 which recognized the right of women to abort. She can still block Texas law, perhaps as early as Wednesday, he said. But the fact that she let the law come into force is “a dire omen of what awaits us in the future in this matter or another”, adds the academic on Twitter.
Former President Donald Trump was able to profoundly reshuffle the high court, bringing in three out of nine magistrates, chosen for their conservative service. Their arrival has galvanized abortion opponents who vie in imagination to provide the Supreme Court with opportunities to reverse its jurisprudence. And she has already sent them positive signals: she agreed to examine, this fall, a Mississippi law that prohibits most abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy, suggesting that she could go back on the criterion of “Fetal viability” posed so far.