The US Supreme Court announced Friday, October 22 that it would review Texas' abortion law on November 1, with the high court refusing to suspend the application of the controversial text at the same time.
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The administration of President Joe Biden had seized Monday the institution at the top of the judicial pyramid of the United States in order to block this law which prohibits any voluntary termination of pregnancy as soon as the heartbeat of the embryo is detectable, or around six weeks of pregnancy, when most women do not yet know they are pregnant. The jurisprudence of the Supreme Court guarantees the right of women to abort as long as the fetus is not viable, that is to say around 22 weeks of pregnancy.
But the text of Texas has a unique device: it entrusts
citizens
"
exclusively
" with the task of enforcing the measure by encouraging them to file a complaint against organizations or people who help women to have illegal abortions.
Under Texas law, people bringing charges against people facilitating abortions beyond six weeks can receive at least $ 10,000 in “
restitution
” if convicted.
Critics of the text see it as a “
bonus
” for denouncing.
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The Supreme Court, where the conservative judges are in the majority, had already been seized for the first time and had invoked these “
new questions of procedure
” to refuse, on September 1, to block the entry into force of the law.
She had not commented on the substance.
A "clearly unconstitutional" law
The federal government then entered the legal arena, filing a lawsuit against Texas on its behalf.
According to Joe Biden's government, the Texas law is "
clearly unconstitutional
" because it flies in the face of the iconic Roe V. Wade judgment of 1973. It will be the first case considered by the Supreme Court since the Former President Donald Trump gave him a majority of six out of nine Conservative judges.
Sonia Sotomayor, one of the three judges appointed by a Democratic president to the high court, opposed the decision announced Friday, arguing that the Supreme Court should have immediately suspended this law which comes "
in open contradiction with constitutional rights women seeking abortions in Texas
”.
In recent years, laws comparable to that of Texas have been passed by a dozen other conservative states and struck down in court for violating this jurisprudence.
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When the High Court left the Texas law in effect in September, following an appeal then brought by defenders of the right to abortion, President Joe Biden had condemned the decision with very strong words, calling it a "
insult to the rule of law
”causing“
chaos
”.
Texas is the second most populous state in the country.
The Supreme Court is also due to review this fall a Mississippi law that prohibits abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
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