A new legal battle with an uncertain outcome is engaged in the United States around the right to abortion, which some States conservatives want to suspend during the new coronavirus pandemic.
Led by Texas, several states in the south and center of the country, have included voluntary abortions in the list of medical procedures “non urgent“prohibited while the Covid-19 epidemic continues.
Legal battle
Denouncing the instrumentalization of the health crisis for “ideological“, defenders of the right to abortion have urgently applied to the courts so that abortion clinics can remain open.
Monday evening, three federal judges agreed with them. In separate decisions, they blocked the decisions of Texas, Ohio and Alabama, recalling that the United States Supreme Court in 1973 had recognized the right of women to have an abortion in the country.
One of them pointed out that the Temple of American Law never mentioned “clause“suspensive in case of health emergency.
For Alexis McGill Johnson of Planned Parenthood, these courts have sent a “clear message“to conservative states:”exploiting a global pandemic to ban abortion is illegal“.
But that message got confused on Tuesday when an appeals court granted Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton a stage victory.
The decision taken in the Texan file “is provisionally suspended in order to give the Court sufficient time to examine“the arguments of the parties, she ordered, allowing Texas to ban, at least temporarily, abortions.
In a press release, prosecutor Paxton “applauded“this decision which, according to him,”places the right priorities in the allocation of protective equipment for caregivers“.
Other hazards
In the United States, where contamination is accelerating (more than 175,000 cases, 3,400 deaths), as in other countries, non-vital operations (to place prostheses or correct vision for example) have been postponed in order to leave a maximum number of beds available for covid-19 patients and to reserve protective equipment for the personnel responsible for their care.
However, learned societies, including the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, have called for maintaining access to abortions. “We warned about the consequences for women“to suspend them, notes Skye Perryman, a manager of this college of specialists:”not being able to have an abortion can have a profound impact on their lives, health and well-being.“
Some pregnant women deprived of access to abortion are going to “travel to other states at risk of exposure or spreading the coronavirus“, others go”try to abort on their own“, feared Alexis McGill Johnson, in a press conference organized by videoconference.
“We all know that pregnancies don’t stop because of the health crisis“added Jennifer Dalven of the powerful civil rights organization ACLU.
Always the same states …
The lawyer assured not to be “surprise“by the decisions of Texas, but also of Alabama, Ohio, Iowa or even Oklahoma:”these are the same states that have been adopting anti-abortion laws for years and seek to close clinics for bogus reasons“.
For the past twenty years, the states of the “Bible belt“have multiplied the restrictive texts on abortion, for example imposing a width for the corridors leading to operating theaters, forcing many clinics to close their doors.
Since the election of Donald Trump, who has won the support of evangelical Christians by posting his opposition to abortion, these states have redoubled their efforts in the hope that the Supreme Court reshuffled by the Republican President will reverse its jurisprudence.
A year ago, Alabama adopted a law banning all abortions even in the event of rape or incest. Justice prevented it from entering into force but the procedure continues.
The latest offensive follows the same logic, said Dr. Yashica Robinson, a gynecologist in Alabama. “After having suffered an unlimited number of attacks, we see the current action of the State for what it is: an attempt to attack access to abortion under the pretext of the pandemic“.
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