The Texas Supreme Court last night blocked a previous order from a lower court that, earlier in the week, determined that clinics could continue to perform abortions within 10 days of the US Supreme Court eliminating such right, annulling the doctrine in force since 1973.
What happened in Texas, when last week abortion was prohibited, becoming legal days later even to end gestations of up to six weeks, and finally being annulled yesterday, exemplifies the chaos and widespread confusion throughout the country after the Supreme ruling.
“These laws are confusing, unnecessary and cruel,” said Marc Hearron, a lawyer at the Center for Reproductive Rights.
Since the highest US judicial instance announced its revocation on June 24, the American Civil Liberties Union, Planned Parenthood and the Center for Reproductive Rights indicated today that they have gone to the courts of eleven states with the intention of restoring that practice. Those three agencies have acted jointly in eleven states and have already achieved temporary victories in Louisiana, Texas, Utah and Kentucky.
They also sued in Mississippi, Arizona, West Virginia, Florida, Idaho, Oklahoma and Ohio. By his count, abortion is not available or readily available in about 12 of the 50 US states, and as a result of the Supreme Court decision, that number is expected to rise to about 26 in the coming weeks and months.
The ruling strikes down abortion rights in the wake of a lawsuit over a Republican-backed Mississippi law that bans abortions after the first 15 weeks of gestation. The resolution confirms that law but obviously goes much further.
The vote to nullify the Roe vs. Wade turned out 5-4 between conservatives and progressives. Chief Justice John Roberts, also a conservative, cast a dissenting opinion to indicate that he would have defended the Mississippi law but would not have gone the extra step of completely eliminating the Roe precedent, and thus the right to abortion.
The annulment of reproductive rights in the United States collides with the majority opinion of its citizens in this regard: according to a survey carried out last May by US public radio and television (NPR and PBS) with the pollster Marist Poll , 64% of Americans defended the continuity of the Roe rule, compared to 33% in favor of the Supreme Court annulling it: a support that had been maintained for many years but was not always reflected in the votes.
