An activist demonstrates against the rule that prohibits the law against abortion from six weeks in Texas last May.SERGIO FLORES / AFP
The silence of the United States Supreme Court has allowed one of the most restrictive anti-abortion laws in the country to take effect. From the first minute of Wednesday, the termination of pregnancy is prohibited in the State of Texas from the sixth week of gestation. The controversial state initiative 8, approved last May by the Republican majority in the local chambers, limits the role of the authorities in monitoring the rule that, on the other hand, allows "anyone" to sue women, doctors or anyone who helps in the termination of a pregnancy. President Joe Biden pointed out Wednesday morning that this new rule is "an obvious violation" of the Constitution and that his Administration will fight to defend the iconic Roe v. Wade,that since 1973 gives women the right to decide about their bodies.
More information
Ultra-conservatives fight to restrict abortion rights in Europe
"Texas law will significantly harm women's access to health, particularly in communities of color and poor," said the Democratic president in a statement.
The White House criticizes the spirit of persecution of the norm, which is feared provoking a wave of denunciations in a very conservative state.
"In an atrocious way, it delegates to citizens the responsibility of denouncing those who believe that they have helped another person to have an abortion, which may include family members, health workers, secretaries or employees in clinics or strangers with no relation to the individual," states the text.
Texas Right to Life, the largest anti-rights organization in the southern state, has celebrated the passage of the rule and launched a website that allows anyone to anonymously point out who they believe has been linked to an abortion.
The site was demolished a few days ago by a computer attack, but it has been recovered by the association, which has received a restraining order from the Dallas Prosecutor's Office in the face of the accumulation of lawsuits that were presented in defense of life.
Protest against restrictive abortion rule in Austin, Texas on May 29.Sergio Flores / Getty Images
Those responsible for birth control clinics in Texas estimate that the new rule will affect 85% of abortions performed in the state and that many women are still unaware that they are pregnant at six weeks' gestation. Another controversial point in the rule, the most severe in a spate of life protection initiatives that began to be enacted almost a decade ago, is that it uses the term “fetal heartbeat”. "A doctor can not induce an abortion in a pregnant woman if he detected the fetal heartbeat of a minor," says the rule. Various specialists argued from the legislative debate that embryos do not develop the four chambers of the heart until week nine. This is the first state rule that protects life from a heartbeat.
Planned Parenthood, the largest reproductive rights organization in the United States, has said that the legal battle over this rule, which it called "ridiculous," has not yet concluded. Alexis McGill, the organization's national director, said its clinics across the state remained open to "help Texans navigate this dangerous law." That was not the reality for many other clinics, which had received dozens of patients in recent days fearful that the law would go into effect. The director of another center, Whole Woman's Health, pointed out that this Wednesday they began to send many women back home who wanted to interrupt their pregnancy due to the fears that the new regulations arouse. Some clinic employees were hesitant to continue working for the site now that they are exposed to civil lawsuits.
Around midnight the Supreme Court declined to rule on the law. It was a new gesture by the conservative majority of the Court, which in recent weeks has given severe blows to progressive laws championed by the Democratic Administration. Among these decisions was the revival of a program from the era of Donald Trump that forces migrants who claim asylum to wait for their process in Mexico and once again allow evictions in communities affected by the pandemic. Judges can still accept emergency requests from human rights groups. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), PP and the Center for Reproductive Rights have waged a legal fight to tear down the rule. It will be a long battle against a majority, which at least today seems consolidated.
Subscribe here to the
EL PAÍS América
newsletter
and receive all the informative keys of the current situation in the region.