A US federal appeals court ruled on Friday that Texas could resume its ban on most abortions, two days after another court suspended the ban.
The decision by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily suspended Wednesday’s ruling, effectively reinstating a ban on most abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected.
On Wednesday, US District Judge Robert Pitman issued a preliminary injunction halting the enforcement of the Texas law, saying it contravened the landmark 1973 US Supreme Court ruling in Roe v Wade, which enshrined a woman’s legal right to an abortion.
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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, appealed that decision, and the appeal was granted on Friday.
“Great news tonight,” Paxton wrote on Twitter shortly after the ruling. “I will fight federal overreach at every turn.”
Planned Parenthood said in a statement late on Friday that “the Fifth Circuit has again disregarded half a century of precedent upholding the constitutional right to abortion.”
Appointments for women seeking abortions after six weeks of pregnancy would be canceled until further notice, the family-planning healthcare provider said.
Laws restricting abortion have been passed in other Republican-led states, but were struck down by the courts because they contravened Roe v Wade.
“The Supreme Court needs to step in and stop this madness,” Nancy Northup, president and chief executive officer of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a statement following Friday’s ruling. “Patients are being thrown back into a state of chaos and fear, and this cruel law is falling hardest on those who already face discriminatory obstacles in healthcare.”
The Texas Heartbeat Act allows members of the public to sue doctors who perform abortions, or anyone who helps facilitate them, once a fetal heartbeat is detected — usually at about six weeks. People can be rewarded with US$10,000 for initiating cases that lead to prosecution, prompting charges that the law encourages people to act as vigilantes.
The law makes no exception for victims of rape or incest.
Part of a broader conservative drive to restrict abortions across the US, the law has prompted a public backlash.
Tens of thousands of women took to the streets in cities across the US last weekend, asserting their reproductive rights.
Advocates of a woman’s right to terminate their pregnancy have called on the US Congress to enshrine the right to abortion in federal law to protect it from any possible reversal by the Supreme Court. A bill to that effect was adopted two weeks ago in the Democratic-majority US House of Representatives, but has no chance of passing the US Senate, where Republicans have enough votes to block it.
The Supreme Court is on Dec. 1 to hear a challenge to a Mississippi law that bans nearly all abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy. If the court were to overturn Roe v Wade, every state would be free to ban or allow abortions.
That would mean 36 million women in 26 states — nearly half of American women of reproductive age — would likely lose the legal right to an abortion, Planned Parenthood said in a report.
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