Texas has just passed a law banning abortion after six weeks of pregnancy. Today, 40% of American women of childbearing age live in a state hostile to abortion, or six times ...

United States: attacks on the right to abortion multiply

Pro and anti-abortion face-to-face during a demonstration outside the United States Supreme Court.

Getty Images via AFP - SAMUEL CORUM

Text by: Marie Normand Follow

7 mins

Texas has just passed a law banning abortion after six weeks of pregnancy.

Today, 40% of American women of childbearing age live in a state hostile to abortion, six times more than 20 years ago.

And this year could be decisive.

Publicity

2021 could be a pivotal year in the history of the right to abort of pregnancy in the United States. Since the beginning of the year, it is unheard of: as of April 30, 536 bills restricting the right to abortion had been tabled in local congresses and 61 had been promulgated, according to the

Guttmacher Institute

. “

This year everything got worse,”

comments Elizabeth Nash, state-level public policy officer at the research institute. "

There are more bills, in more states and in particular restrictions that come close to a complete ban on abortion

This is the case in Texas: Thursday evening, the local Congress passed a law known as the "heartbeat", which prohibits abortion from six weeks of pregnancy.

“

Most often, at six weeks pregnant, women do not know they are pregnant,

” notes Elizabeth Nash, who refers to a “

coordinated attack

” of states located mostly in what is called the

Bible Belt

(“ Bible belt ”), a collection of conservative states in the Midwest and South of the country.

An offensive facilitated by the legacy of Donald Trump

One state, Arkansas, has broken all records since the start of the year. He alone enacted twenty restrictive laws. "

For example, clinics have the obligation to give the names of patients under the age of 18 to the authorities, they must also preserve the tissues resulting from abortion as evidence of crimes

", lists Jennifer Merchant, teacher-researcher at Paris II University and specialist in the United States. Other states have chosen to legislate the width of the corridors of clinics that perform abortion. They take advantage of the possibility offered to them to regulate abortion, which the judgment in

Roe v. Wade

of the Supreme Court guaranteed all American women in 1973. Their only limit: state laws should not represent a

“

Undue burden

”

on a woman's right to terminate her pregnancy.

This offensive against the right to abortion is facilitated by the legacy of Donald Trump: the former president appointed many conservative judges during his tenure, to the Supreme Court, but also to the lower echelons of federal justice (courts of district, courts of appeal), who are the first to judge these new conservative laws.

The Supreme Court in the crosshairs

The goal of elected officials who vote for these restrictions is to go much further than Arkansas, Texas or Ohio. Indeed, the application of these local laws is often suspended by the courts, after appeals from organizations defending abortion. "

Their goal is to pass laws that will be challenged by the pro-choice movement, and that these cases progress little by little to the top of the pyramid of the courts, to the Supreme Court, with the hope that the Roe v. Wade is overturned, and the opportunity to decide whether or not abortion is legal to return

States

, "says Jennifer Merchant.

21 states out of 50 are already ready to automatically ban voluntary termination of pregnancy if the Supreme Court reverses its 1973 judgment. Jennifer Merchant expects the nine judges to take up a case related to this topic. here at the end of the year.

But she is careful not to make predictions about what will happen to their decision.

In June 2020,

the United States Supreme Court inflicted a setback

on the conservatives by overturning Louisiana's very restrictive abortion law.

Federal law to protect abortion?

The urgency, according to the researcher, is to protect the right to abortion other than by a case law which has gradually lost its substance.

“

The Roe v.
Wade can be overthrown, but basically what is he for today?
In the 18 months that remain with the weak Democratic majority in Congress, it would be more interesting to pass a federal law which perpetuates this right to abortion,

”she believes.

For now, Joe Biden has not commented.

It will probably be harder for him to support a text on this very sensitive issue with the approach of the mid-term elections, during which the American president hopes to seduce beyond his traditional electorate.

United States: attacks on the right to abortion multiply

United States: attacks on the right to abortion multiply

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