It only took a few days to see the concrete consequences of the Supreme Court’s decision to authorize American states to prohibit voluntary terminations of pregnancy (abortion). A ten-year-old patient, six weeks and three days pregnant, living in Ohio, is forced to travel to Indiana to perform an abortion, reports the Indianapolis Star, without giving further information on the child.
Ohio, like other American states, has limited the practice of abortion, prohibiting it after six weeks of pregnancy, as is the case in Texas or Tennessee. In other states, abortion is simply prohibited or in the process of being prohibited, without any exception, pushing women to have to go where it is still authorized.
Compulsory trips for abortion
In Indiana, the law hasn’t changed yet — but it might soon. This leads some people to go there for an abortion, like this 10-year-old child. One of the clinics cited by the Indianapolis Star says it has “a crazy amount of requests” from women from neighboring states, where abortion has been banned or severely restricted. From five to eight patients a day, the number of people from other states in the clinics has risen to about 20, the newspaper said.
If the situation of this 10-year-old child is debated, the question had already arisen. In late April, as Ohio was discussing an abortion ban, a state official was asked about it: If a 13-year-old child is raped and becomes pregnant, the bill would force her to have a baby from her rapist? Yes, had estimated Jean Schmidt, as reported by the Washington Post. “It’s a shame this is happening, but there is an opportunity for this woman, no matter how young or old, to decide what she is going to do to help this life be a productive human being.” , she had specified.
At the end of June, the US Supreme Court decided to revoke the right to abortion, leaving states free to ban it if they wish. “The Constitution does not prohibit the citizens of each state from regulating or prohibiting abortion”, specified the Supreme Court, but returns “this power to the people and their elected representatives”. In a historic about-face, the very conservative Supreme Court of the United States had thus buried a judgment which, for nearly half a century, guaranteed the right of American women to abortion but had never been accepted by the religious right. .
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