The US Supreme Court on Friday authorized lower courts to challenge the Texas law banning most abortions in the state, which went into effect in September and has been seen as a threat to the right to voluntary interruption of pregnancy in the country. Although it has opened the window for challenge, the country’s highest court has not suspended the Texan legislation, which remains in force.
Texas law is the most restrictive abortion regulation in the United States. It prohibits terminating a pregnancy once the fetus’s heartbeat is detected, which happens around the sixth week of pregnancy, when many women are still unaware they are pregnant. There is no exception for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest.
Under the law, anyone can sue clinics and anyone who helped with the abortion, such as who paid for the procedure or even the taxi driver who took the woman to the scene, something unprecedented in the country. The plaintiff does not even have to live in Texas or have any relationship with the pregnant woman and can still receive at least US$10,000 (today, the equivalent of more than R$55,000) in compensation paid by the defendant.
This unusual form of inspection has so far complicated federal actions, such as the Supreme Court itself, which refused to intervene, arguing that the law has “new procedural issues”. The inaction was seen as a direct result of the appointment of conservative judges by former Republican President Donald Trump.
But since then, the legal battle has intensified, forcing the country’s highest court to discuss the case.
Abortion clinics and Joe Biden’s Democratic government filed a lawsuit arguing that the law violates a woman’s constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy, recognized in the United States since 1973 in a case known as Roe v. Wade.
This Friday, eight members of the court agreed that the principle that protects the sovereignty of the country’s 50 states does not prevent prosecutions in federal courts, according to the decision — which was voted against only by the conservative judge Clarence Thomas.
Court President John Roberts and three progressive magistrates added, in a separate text, that they would like the courts to quickly block this law “given its sinister and persistent effects.”
The permission to challenge the law was praised by abortion rights advocates. “We won, on a limited basis. Our lawsuit could continue against health departments, medical advice, nursing advice and pharmacy advice. [que proibisse a lei] statewide, but there is no clear path for that. Rest assured, we are not going to stop fighting,” wrote Whole Woman’s Health, a clinic that filed against the state, on Twitter.
Those contesting abortion rights welcomed the Supreme Court’s decision not to suspend the law. “We celebrate that the Texas Heartbeat Act will remain in effect, saving the lives of unborn children and protecting mothers, while litigation continues in lower courts,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the anti-abortion organization Susan B. Anthony List.
There is another important case underway in the Supreme Court, the judgment of a Mississippi state law, suspended by lower courts, that prohibits abortion from the 15th week of pregnancy. During oral arguments in the case earlier this month, conservative Supreme Court justices expressed sympathy for the measure.
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