Texas Supreme Court Seems to Block Restrictive Abortion Law

(Washington) A majority of the justices of the Supreme Court of the United States seemed inclined Monday to block a Texas law which represents the hardest blow to the right to abortion in nearly 50 years.

Four of the nine magistrates of the Court – the three progressives and the head of the Court John Roberts – had already indicated that they wanted to freeze this text which, for two months, has drastically limited the right of Texan women to terminate their pregnancy.

During an emergency hearing, two of their conservative colleagues, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, both appointees by ex-President Donald Trump, also expressed their skepticism at the unprecedented architecture of the law, which which should tip the majority.

"The judges seemed to recognize that Texas' position is extreme and threatens the foundations of our constitutional democracy," commented after the hearing Marc Hearron, attorney for the organization Whole Woman's Health, which operates four clinics practicing pregnancy terminations in Texas.

“We are heartened by the vigorous questions posed today,” added Julie Murray, an attorney for the organization Planned Parenthood. “But the reality on the ground […] is that patients continue to suffer,” she added.

Since September ¹ , it is forbidden to abort in Texas when the heartbeat of the embryo is perceptible, that is after six weeks of pregnancy, even in the event of incest or rape.

A dozen other conservative states have passed similar laws, but they have all been struck down in court for violating Supreme Court case law.

In 1973, the latter recognized the right of women to abort and specified in 1992 that it applies as long as the fetus is not viable outside the uterus, ie around 22 weeks of pregnancy.

"Denouncement"

Texas, a true laboratory of the most conservative ideas, has however imagined an exceptional device which complicates the intervention of federal justice.

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— lucía Sun Jan 10 15:57:44 +0000 2021

Its law entrusts "exclusively" to citizens the task of enforcing this prohibition, by encouraging them to take civil action against people and organizations that help women have abortions beyond six weeks.

In the event of a victory in court, these citizens will obtain $10,000 in compensation, the law provides. Its detractors see it as a “premium for denunciation”.

Seized urgently for the first time two months ago, the Supreme Court had taken shelter behind these “new procedural questions” to refuse to intervene.

His inaction, seen as a sign of the influence of the three magistrates appointed by Donald Trump, had been strongly criticized on the left, Democratic President Joe Biden castigating a decision which "insults the rule of law".

The legal battle then intensified, forcing the Supreme Court to fully take up the case.

" Genius "

Holding signs with irreconcilable messages – “Abortion is essential” or “Let their hearts beat” – defenders and opponents of abortion gathered outside the seat of the high court in Washington on Monday for the highly anticipated hearing. .

In the white marble building, the nine wise men did not discuss this right, only the legal mechanism created by Texas.

Ironically about "the genius" who invented this device, the progressive judge Elena Kagan said "not understand" how her colleagues could have said "we have never seen that, so we can not do anything".

Conservative Brett Kavanaugh, who let the law go into effect in September, this time worried "about the implications for other constitutional rights".

Could there be “a law that would make it possible to claim millions of dollars from anyone selling an AR-15 rifle? “, he asked in particular.

Her colleague Amy Coney Barrett for her part stressed that the law could not be blocked at the level of the courts of the States, countering the main argument of the other conservatives who seemed to want to rely on local justice.

The decision of the Supreme Court, which could freeze the law itself or refer the case to a trial court, should be published fairly quickly.

Whatever it is, the battle will not be over: the high court must examine on December ¹ a Mississippi law which prohibits abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. For observers, it could take advantage of this more classic text to begin to unravel its case law, returning to a minimum on the criterion of “fetal viability”.