Federal judge blocks law restricting abortion in Texas

A Texas federal judge on Wednesday temporarily blocked a controversial law banning the majority of abortions in that state, in a lawsuit filed by President Joe Biden's government. "This court will not allow this shocking deprivation of such an important right to continue for another day," Judge Robert Pitman wrote in his decision, which the state of Texas can appeal. Texas can temporarily no longer enforce the Republican-backed law, according to the ruling.

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Texas law, which went into effect Sept. 1, prohibits abortions once the embryo's heartbeats are detected, about six weeks into pregnancy, when most women don't know they're pregnant. It does not provide an exception in the event of incest or rape, but only in the event of a medical emergency. In recent years, comparable laws have been passed by a dozen other conservative states and struck down in court for violating US Supreme Court case law. This guarantees the right of women to abort as long as the fetus is not viable, around 22 weeks of pregnancy.

“The battle is far from over”

But the Texas text has a unique device: it entrusts "exclusively" to citizens the task of enforcing the measure by encouraging them to file a complaint against organizations or people who help women to have illegal abortions. The Supreme Court, where conservative judges are clearly in the majority, invoked these “new procedural questions” to refuse, a month ago, to block the law as demanded by defenders of the right to abortion. The federal government then entered the legal arena, citing its interest in upholding the constitutional rights of Americans.

"For more than a month, Texans have been deprived of access to abortion because of an unconstitutional law that should never have come into force," reacted in a press release Alexis McGill Johnson, the giant's president. family planning Planned Parenthood. Recalling that "the battle is far from over", Alexis McGill Johnson said he hoped that this decision would allow clinics to start performing abortions again.

Anti-abortion law in Texas: understand everything about the ongoing legal battle

Democratic President Joe Biden had promised in September “an immediate response” from his government, which he had ordered to find “measures to ensure that women in Texas have access to safe and legal abortion”. Last week, tens of thousands of women demonstrated in the United States to defend the right to abortion. “No matter where you are, this fight is at your doorstep today,” Alexis McGill Johnson had launched in Washington.

SEE ALSO - United States: the Biden government has filed a complaint against Texas for its anti-abortion law