Biden’s government stands up to Texas over its abortion veto

The government of the president U.S, Joe Biden, He stood up in court this Friday to the Texas authorities, in an attempt to stop the application of a law that bans practically all abortions in that state.

The court hearing of more than three hours was the first clash between the US Department of Justice and the Texas authorities since that almost total ban on abortion came into force, which contains no exceptions for cases of incest or rape. , in the second most populated state in the country.

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The federal judge who is handling the case, Robert Pitman, studied during the session the request of the Biden government to preliminarily suspend the implementation of the law, which came into force just a month ago, and for which the Department of Justice has sued to Texas.

A “UNUSUAL” MECHANISM

Although Pitman did not announce a decision during the hearing and said that he would continue to study the issue, his questions in the session made clear his astonishment at the mechanism designed by Texas to enforce the law, based on lawsuits filed by private citizens.

“If the state is so confident (as it says) that limiting a woman’s access to abortion is constitutional, then why has it gone to all the trouble to create this unusual (mechanism) of engagement?” Pitman asked , a magistrate in a federal court in Austin (Texas).

The Texas prosecutor in charge of defending the case, Will Thompson, responded that, in his opinion, the mechanism is not so extraordinary and that it is not true that the state has resorted to “unusual” ideas to get the measure to go ahead.

Texas law allows individuals to file civil lawsuits against anyone who assists a pregnant woman with an abortion if they believe they are violating the prohibition, and offers damages of up to $ 10,000 to each plaintiff if they win the lawsuit.

That system has so far allowed Texas authorities to evade responsibility for law enforcement, because the burden of implementation rests on those private citizens, and not on the conservative leaders who pushed for the veto.

It was this legal vacuum that allowed the law to go into effect a month ago with the approval of the Supreme Court, despite the fact that it expressly contradicts the 1973 judicial decision that legalized abortion throughout the United States, known as “Roe versus Wade.” .

A VETO “SUPPORTED BY JUSTICIES”

The Texas veto – which bans abortion from six weeks gestation, when many women still don’t know they are pregnant – is the most restrictive of the 90 that have come into effect this year in territories across the country, driven by leaders conservatives in state congresses.

The Department of Justice recalled during the hearing that the Texas veto violates the 1973 Supreme Court decision and a subsequent 1992 decision, which allows US states to restrict abortion, but only once the fetus can survive outside from the womb, around 24 weeks.

“No state can ban abortions at six weeks. Texas knew this, but still wanted a six-week veto, so they resorted to an unprecedented scheme supported by vigilantes, “said the representative of the Department of Justice in the case, Brian Netter.

That system, he added, is “designed to scare abortion providers who could help women exercise their constitutional rights.”

And the mechanism is working, according to Amy Hagstrom Miller, the president of Whole Woman’s Health, a reproductive health organization that has three clinics in Texas.

“Every day that SB8 is in effect (as the law is known), we have to deny service to numerous patients,” Hagstrom Miller lamented in a brief filed with the court.

HUNDREDS OF KILOMETERS TO ABORT

The ban has forced many to travel hundreds of miles to attempt abortions in neighboring states: Planned Parenthood clinics in Oklahoma have received 133% more patients from Texas in the last month, and New Mexico, 67 % plus.

However, the majority of women who attempt to terminate their pregnancy voluntarily each year in the United States are poor, according to the Guttmacher Institute, and for many of them it is not an option to move to another state to gain access to a abortion.

If Judge Pitman accepted the Justice Department’s request and preliminarily stopped enforcement, Texas clinics could temporarily revert to abortions after six weeks’ gestation.

However, the state of Texas would surely appeal the decision and take the case to the Fifth Circuit court of appeals, one of the most conservative in the country. It is possible that the matter will go back to the Supreme Court, although few legal experts believe that this court will come to assess the constitutionality of the law.

There are two other avenues that could end Texas law: a lawsuit filed by abortion providers pending a hearing in the Fifth Circuit, and two lawsuits filed by private individuals against a Texan doctor who confessed in an opinion piece that he had violated the veto.

If those private lawsuits reach the Texas State Supreme Court, there is a possibility that the court will dismiss the mechanism established in the law and prohibit future lawsuits, but many observers doubt that such an outcome is possible, given the conservative inclination of that court.

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Deshawn