In a revolutionary law-changing move, the state of Texas banned abortion after 6 weeks of pregnancy. Adding to the shock of angry Texans was the fact that the Supreme Court refused to barge in and block the unconstitutional law.
The decision was taken by a narrow miss, with 5-4 votes on Thursday by the top court’s judges. The order was passed after the so-called Heartbeat law came into effect on Wednesday, denying pregnant women the chance to undergo an abortion. With it came a massive uproar from the residents across the state along with abortion providers and others who urged for the law to be repealed.
Under this law, abortion will not be an option once medical professionals detect a heartbeat or cardiac activity in the foetus. This usually occurs at around 6 weeks of gestation and the majority of the women don’t even realize that they are pregnant at this time.
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The law goes against Roe v Wade- a decision taken by the Supreme Court in 1973 that gave women the liberty to undergo an abortion without the pressure of the government. Abortion rights groups raised this on Thursday after the Republican Governor Greg Abbott-passed order of May got no sign of rebuke from the SC.
However, the top court ruled that its decision does not stop any challenges to the law. It said that the order is not a conclusion to the issue and the matter can be taken forward legally.
The unsigned order stated, “In reaching this conclusion, we stress that we do not purport to resolve definitively any jurisdictional or substantive claim in the applicants’ lawsuit.”
“In particular, this order is not based on any conclusion about the constitutionality of Texas’s law, and in no way limits other procedurally proper challenges to the Texas law, including in Texas state courts,” it added.
Opposing the ruling were Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Justice Elena Kagan, and Justice Stephen Breyer.
Justice Sotomayor went ahead and called the majority court’s decision “stunning”. She sharply reacted to it saying that the “flagrantly unconstitutional law engineered to prohibit women from exercising their constitutional rights and evade judicial scrutiny” have been presented and that “the majority of justices opted to bury their heads in the sand.”
Abortion providers called it a “devasting” news, which “blatantly violates the Roe v Wade law” while others said that people seeking abortion in Texas are “panicking”. Women are forced to leave the state, if they have the resources in the first place, to receive medical care. This includes having to travel hundreds of kilometres in time to get the treatment.
US President Joe Biden sided with those against the law and called the violation “extreme”. He said the law “blatantly violates the constitutional right established under Roe v Wade and upheld as precedent for nearly half a century”.
After the SC decision was announced, he said that his “administration is deeply committed to the constitutional right established in Roe v Wade nearly five decades ago and will protect and defend that right,”
Others said that people of colour and those belonging to the weaker financial sections will be most affected.
