South by Southwest is best known as a technology conference, music and film festival.

But the organizers of the event in Austin, Texas also take up social and political debates.

As they themselves admit, they do so from a left-liberal perspective, which is in line with the political stance of a majority of people in Austin, but not with the balance of power in the entire state of Texas, which is firmly in the hands of conservative Republicans.

The festival therefore often provides a counterpoint to the political environment in his homeland.

Roland Lindner

Business correspondent in New York.

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This year it did so in a particularly demonstrative way.

The opening keynote on Friday had nothing to do with technology and was about abortion.

There is a current reason for this, because around six months ago a very restrictive new law called "SB8" came into force in Texas, which bans abortions at a very early stage of pregnancy.

Reserving this prominent speaker's seat was like pointing the middle finger at the Texan government around Governor Greg Abbott.

The debate has gained even more urgency since it became apparent that the Supreme Court in Washington could undermine the constitutional right to abortion that has been in force across the country for almost 50 years.

The keynote was delivered by Alexis McGill Johnson, CEO of Planned Parenthood.

This is probably the best-known organization in the USA that campaigns for the right to abortions, and accordingly it is one of the biggest enemy images of abortion opponents.

It has a network of several hundred clinics that offer abortions, but also many uncontroversial health services such as cancer screening.

Recent legislative initiatives in America have caused Planned Parenthood to sound alarmed: "The rest of the world is moving in a completely different direction than we are," McGill Johnson said on Friday.

All possibilities exhausted

The speech came just hours after the Texas Supreme Court may have finally halted efforts to overturn the country's tougher rules by dismissing a lawsuit challenging the law.

"This now exhausts all our options to stop this terrible law."

The Texas abortion ban goes into effect at around six weeks of pregnancy, and makes no exceptions in cases of rape or incest.

Its authors tried to circumvent the existing constitutional right to abortion by using a trick.

He does not put the implementation of the law in the hands of the authorities, but of private individuals, and promises them a kind of bounty.

Anyone can file a lawsuit against anyone who assisted in any way with an abortion, whether it's a doctor or nurse, family member, or even an Uber driver who takes a woman to the abortion clinic.

And each of those lawsuits could result in a reward of up to $10,000.

The more people who file a lawsuit, the more expensive it can become to “assist” with an abortion.

This system led to increased surveillance after a short time, says McGill Johnson: "We see people taking photos in parking lots."

Number of abortions down

The head of Planned Parenthood says that bounty is why so many Texas abortion clinics are reluctant to break the law.

Since the law went into effect, the number of abortions in Texas has fallen by 60 percent.

But that doesn't mean that abortions aren't happening anymore, because many women are now simply traveling to other states.

The number of women who chose this path has multiplied.

Meanwhile, Texan abortion clinics operated like call centers and limited themselves to getting women appointments in other states.

Texas law is considered the strictest in America.

But it is not an isolated case.

Several dozen other US states have also introduced legislative initiatives to create barriers to abortion.

One of them from the state of Mississippi, which bans abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, is now before the Washington Chief Justice.

A hearing was held in December, and several judges indicated they wanted to leave Mississippi's abortion ban in place.

If so, it could lead to "Roe v.

Wade, the 1973 case that gave women the constitutional right to have an abortion.

And polls suggest that would be against the will of a majority of Americans.

Even in Texas, those who want the abolition of Roe v.

Wade" wanted, in the minority, said McGill Johnson.

That doesn't seem to impress the local government, of course.