A protester holds a sign reading "Keep abortion legal" at the Dallas Reproductive Liberation March. (archive image).
Leslie Spurlock/ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
The strict abortion law in Texas remains in force for the time being - but the US Supreme Court has scheduled a hearing on it for November 1. Thus, the Supreme Court rejected on Friday a request by the administration of US President Joe Biden to suspend the law.
The so-called Heartbeat Act prohibits most abortions in the conservatively governed US state. But not all Supreme Court judges agreed with the current decision. The liberal judge Sonia Sotomayor reacted with sharp words.
"Women who want to have an abortion in Texas are entitled to have this court help them now," Sotomayor wrote in a dissenting opinion on the Supreme Court's majority ruling. "Since the court has failed to act today, this remedy, when it comes, will be too late for many."
However, it is good that an early hearing is scheduled. The 67-year-old Sotomayor has been a supreme court judge since 2009 and was nominated for this office by then-US President Barack Obama. She usually votes from a left-liberal basic attitude, while most of her colleagues stand for a conservative jurisprudence.
Abortion prohibited from heartbeat
Texas law prohibits abortions once the fetus' heartbeat has been detected. This can be the case as early as the sixth week of pregnancy. Many women do not even know at this time that they are pregnant.
What is extraordinary about the law is that it allows private individuals to take civil action against anyone who helps a woman have an abortion. The regulation allows lawsuits against a whole range of people - from the taxi driver driving a woman to the clinic to parents who financially support their daughter with the abortion.
Actually, according to a landmark ruling from 1973, abortions are allowed in the USA until the viability of the fetus - today until about the 24th week of pregnancy. The Texas law is trying to undermine this very right with new procedural issues, Sotomayor said.
Sotomayor: "Effects catastrophic"
"The state's move has worked. The effects are catastrophic." The judge went on to write, "As I write these lines, some of these women do not yet know they are pregnant." If they found out, they would not be able to exercise their right to abortion.
Under former President Donald Trump, the Supreme Court had moved significantly to the right through personnel replacements - the last in this series was the conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
According to experts, the Supreme Court is likely to deal with procedural issues at the hearing on 1 November - for example, it is to be examined whether the US Department of Justice can challenge the law in court in this way. However, the court will also focus on the unusual way in which the law is drafted. Even before the Biden administration's failed motion, the court had rejected another attempt to stop the law.
The legal wrangling over the regulation has been occupying the courts for weeks. The law went into effect on September 1 and sparked a wave of outrage in the United States. By refusing to put the law on hold until the hearing, the Supreme Court is sending an alarming signal, the civil rights organization ACLU criticized. The highest US court will soon also deal with another case from the state of Mississippi, which could massively restrict the right to abortion nationwide.
© dpa-infocom, dpa:211023-99-703333/2
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