United States: Federal Court of Appeal Restores Texas Anti-Abortion Law | Two days after it was blocked

A federal appeals court in the United States reinstated the restrictive anti-abortion law implemented in Texas on Friday night, just two days after a judge temporarily blocked it.

A Federal Court of Appeal allowed this great conservative state to restore a ultra-restrictive law that bans abortion once the embryo’s heartbeat is detected, around six weeks pregnant, when most women are still unaware that they are pregnant. The law does not provide for an exception in cases of rape or incest.

Family planning organization Planned Parenthood immediately announced it would once again suspend abortions longer than six weeks and denounced a court ruling that “once again ignores half a century of precedent protecting the constitutional right to death. ‘abortion”.

The twists and turns of justice

The Texas Heartbeat Act, which came into effect on September 1, was temporarily blocked by a Texas federal judge on Wednesday following a complaint from Joe Biden’s government.

After the blockade, abortions of pregnancies over six weeks resumed in some clinics in the state, the second most populous in the country with 29 million people.

But Texas Attorney General Republican Ken Paxton appealed to a federal court, known to be one of the most conservative in the country, which ruled in her favor and again banned voluntary terminations of pregnancy.

Whatever the final decision of the court of appeal, the case is likely to end up before the Supreme Court, which refused a few weeks ago to study the law even though it recognized that the litigants had raised concerns. serious doubts about its constitutionality.

The magistrate who blocked the law on Wednesday, Robert Pitman, said Texas “has created an aggressive and unprecedented mechanism to deprive its citizens of an important and well-established constitutional right.”

For Pitman, the law “has unlawfully prevented women from exercising control over their lives” and added that his court “will not allow this offensive deprivation to continue for one more day.”

What the law says

texan law allows individuals to bring civil suits against anyone who assists a pregnant woman with an abortion if they think you are violating the ban and offer rewards of up to $ 10,000 to each plaintiff if you win the case.

This system has so far allowed Texan authorities to shirk responsibility for law enforcement, as the burden of implementation rests on these citizens and not on the conservative leaders who have vetoed it.

It is this legal vacuum that allowed the law to enter into force a month ago with the approval of the Supreme Court., despite an express contradiction to the 1973 court ruling that legalized abortion across the United States, known as “Roe versus Wade”.

The Texas veto – which bans abortion from six weeks gestation, when many women still do not know they are pregnant – is the most restrictive of the 90 that came into effect this year in the territories to across the country, pushed by the conservative leaders of the congress state.

In all likelihood, the federal government will appeal the decision of the Court of Appeal. You have until Tuesday afternoon to do so. This law is likely to be quickly submitted to a review by the Supreme Court.

United States law

In his iconic 1973 phrase Roe v. Wade, the highest court guaranteed a woman’s right to abortion. Then he specified that it is applied when the fetus is not viable, that is to say around 22 weeks of gestation.

In recent years, a dozen other conservative states have passed laws comparable to those in Texas, but have been struck down by the courts for violating that jurisprudence.

“The Supreme Court must intervene and stop this madness,” reacted in a statement Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which defends the right to abortion.

But in September, for the first time in nearly half a century, the Supreme Court refused to block the entry into force of Texas law, which also violates Roe v. Wade.

The High Court justified its inaction by “new procedural questions”, on the grounds that Texas law consists of a single device: it entrusts “exclusively” to citizens the task of enforcing the measure by encouraging them to file complaints against organizations or individuals who help women. abort illegally.

The position of the Supreme Court in this case was seen as a “turn to the right” of this high court, of which six of the nine judges are conservatives, including three appointed by Donald Trump.

The Supreme Court is also due to review a Mississippi law banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy this fall, and could take the opportunity to establish its new position.

While the Court set aside Roe v. Wade, all states would be free to ban or allow abortion.