Washington (AFP)

An administrative commission began Monday to review the record of the only clinic performing abortions in Missouri, which could become the first US state without any access to voluntary abortions (abortion) for nearly half a century.

The authorities of this conservative state of the central United States want to close the structure based in St. Louis, evoking "concerns" health.

But the Planned Parenthood organization running the clinic denounces a "pretense" and accuses Republican Governor Mike Parson of wanting to make abortion impossible in his state.

The clinic's operating license expired on May 31st. Seized in urgency, a judge allowed him to continue to practice temporarily while waiting for an administrative commission to examine the merits of the case.

Sreenivasa Rao Dandamudi, who serves as umpire in this body, began Monday hearings led to continue throughout the week. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper, its decision should not be made until February.

To compensate for a possible closure of her clinic, Planned Parenthood has just opened a new facility less than 30 kilometers away, but in the neighboring state of Illinois, where the authorities are more protective of the right of women to abort, such as established in 1973 by the United States Supreme Court.

In Missouri, Governor Parson, an abortion opponent, signed a law early this year prohibiting abortions beyond eight weeks of pregnancy, in violation of Supreme Court case law, which allows the abortions as long as the fetus is not viable, ie around 24 weeks of pregnancy.

This text has been blocked in court, like a dozen comparable laws passed since the beginning of the year in several states of the "Bible Belt", the south and the religious center of the United States.

This offensive is due to the arrival in the Supreme Court of two judges appointed by President Donald Trump, who tipped the institution into the conservative camp. Opponents of abortion rely on them for the Court to reverse its 1973 decision.

At the same time, the most conservative states are continuing to tighten the conditions for the exercise of abortion facilities, so that six states have only one clinic to abort.

© 2019 AFP