US elected officials on Wednesday slammed a
"war on women"
after a Florida appeals court upheld a ruling that a 16-year-old girl with deceased parents was
"not mature enough"
to have an abortion.
"In what world is a 16 year old too immature to have an abortion but mature enough to bear and raise a child?"
, asked on Twitter the elected Democrat of Ohio Joyce Beatty, supported by her colleagues Bonnie Watson Coleman of New Jersey and Katherine Clark of Massachusetts.
A "war" on women
"This is a dangerous and terrifying example of Florida's war on women
," said the elected Democrat of this state in the southeastern United States, Lois Frankel, who deemed the decision
"unacceptable"
and called for
"fighting for women's health, safety and freedom"
.
On social networks, many Internet users also underlined the apparent inconsistency of the judgment and expressed their anger, some taking up a hashtag calling for a boycott of Florida.
An appeals court on Monday upheld Escambia County Judge Jennifer Frydrychowicz's decision to deny a 16-year-old woman's request for an abortion, referred to as "Jane Doe 22-B," on the pretext that she had failed to prove
"that she was mature enough to decide to terminate her pregnancy".
This judgment comes less than two months after the historic about-face of the American Supreme Court, which at the end of June reconsidered the constitutional guarantee of the right to abortion which it had established in 1973 by the judgment “Roe v.
Wade”, leaving the American states to legislate freely on the question.
A dozen states have already taken the opportunity to ban abortion, most of the time without exception in cases of incest, rape or danger to the health of the mother, and women's rights associations fear that nearly half of the States are ultimately concerned.
In Florida, abortion is still legal until the 15th week after the last period.
“Jane Doe 22-B” was only ten weeks pregnant when she made her request for an abortion because she could not obtain the consent of at least one of her parents, both deceased, an essential condition for minors wishing have an abortion in Florida.