The high court, which has a solid conservative majority (six judges out of nine), refused without explaining its reasons to refer the case to a federal judge who, at first instance, had blocked this legislation.
Concretely, this means that the case remains in the hands of the very conservative federal appeals court in New Orleans, where the procedure is bogged down.
The three progressive judges of the Supreme Court dissociated themselves from their colleagues in a text with an acid tone.
Today, for the fourth time, the Court refused to protect pregnant women in Texas
, Judge Sonia Sotomayor wrote on their behalf. The Court looks elsewhere
while Texas deprives its citizens of their constitutional rights
, she added.
Since September 1, this southern state has prohibited abortions, even in cases of rape or incest, as soon as the heartbeat of the embryo is perceptible, at around six weeks of pregnancy.
A dozen comparable laws have been invalidated in the past because they violate the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court. The latter recognized in 1973 in its historic judgment Roe V.Wade
, then reaffirmed in 1992, the right of American women to abort as long as the fetus is not viable, around 22 to 24 weeks of pregnancy.
But Texas has imagined an exceptional device. His law entrusts exclusively
to citizens the task of enforcing its prohibition, by encouraging them to take civil action against the people and organizations that help women to violate it, against the promise of $10,000 in compensation.
In the absence of an official official to whom to order not to apply the law, this mechanism complicates the intervention of federal justice. Referred to on several occasions, the Supreme Court took shelter behind these new procedural issues
to stay away.
Her inaction, seen as a sign of the influence of the three judges appointed by Donald Trump, shows that she is unwilling to defend the right to abortion.
She could even waive it in a separate filing from Mississippi. During the hearing devoted to it, several of its magistrates seemed ready to annul the Roe v. Wade, which would allow each state to do whatever it wants with termination of pregnancy.
