Biden government asks Supreme Court to block Texas anti-abortion law

The case is bogged down, and given the stakes, the two camps will not give up an inch of ground. On Monday, Joe Biden’s government formally asked the Supreme Court to block Texas’ recently enacted anti-abortion law. Extremely restrictive, it prohibits abortion as soon as the embryo’s heartbeat is detectable, i.e. around six weeks of pregnancy, when most women are still unaware of being pregnant, without exception for rape or incest.

For the government, this law is “clearly unconstitutional” since it goes against the emblematic Roe V. Wade judgment of 1973, which allows women to abort until the 22nd week of pregnancy. Since then, several states have tabled dozens of more restrictive laws, all of which have been rebutted. But since Donald Trump’s tenure, judges have been mostly conservative. And they found a loophole so as not to break the law, on the form, on September 1.

A series of restrictive laws to come

The Court then evoked “new questions of procedure”, with reference to the unique device of Texas law: only citizens are required to ensure that it is respected. But basically, nothing. This is where the battle began, with the federal government initiating legal proceedings. Judge Robert Pitman blocked the law on October 6, before a conservative Louisiana appeals court tried him. So here’s the case again before the Supreme Court.

Maintaining the law would “perpetuate the irreparable harm now done to thousands of women in Texas who are denied their constitutional rights,” Acting US Attorney General Brian Fletcher wrote in his argument. It would also create significant case law, as the Supreme Court must review a Mississippi law banning abortions after 15 weeks.