US Supreme Court strikes down constitutional right to abortion

The state of Missouri becomes the first to suspend the practice after the decision with the activation of an automatic law

The Supreme Court of the United States has eliminated the constitutional right to abortion in the country after annulling, as leaked earlier this month, the Roe v. Wade ruling that recognized for the first time the right of women to abortion without restrictions during the first trimester of pregnancy, a legal precedent that has been used in the country since 1973.

The decision has been adopted with the vote in favor of the six conservative judges and the rejection of the three liberal magistrates of the high court.

By removing the character of constitutional right, the Supreme Court ruling gives states free rein to enforce its ban, amid a dispute over a 2018 law passed by the Mississippi Republican legislature to ban abortions after 15 weeks.

In this sense, the legislators of more than twenty states under the mandate of the Republican Party have already prepared bills that would prohibit or restrict abortion at the time the Supreme Court annulled Roe v. Wade, according to what judicial sources explained at the beginning of the month. to the newspaper 'The New York Times'.

Thirteen of them have already prepared the so-called "automatic activation laws" to restrict or prohibit the right to abortion at the same time that the Supreme Court annuls the ruling with a decision that, critics denounce, does not correspond to the surveys among the public opinion in the United States.

Missouri has been the first of them through a statement from its attorney general, Eric Schmitt, on his Twitter account. "Following the Supreme Court's ruling, Missouri has just become the first state in the country to effectively end abortion through this opinion signed by the Attorney General's Office," he announced on the social network. "This is a monumental day for the sanctity of life," he added. The governor of the state, Mike Parson, has ratified the activation of the law.

According to a poll last month prepared by the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and the University of Texas, 62.3 percent of those surveyed opposed overturning Roe v. Wade and only 37.8 percent of those consulted were in favor. of its annulment, according to the results published by SCOTUSBlog, one of the most prominent information portals on the Supreme Court.

As far as political orientation was concerned, 59.2 percent of the declared Republican voters were in favor of the revocation, while 40.8 percent of the sympathizers of this party were in favor of maintaining the situation as it stands. how was it.

After Missouri, Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton has also announced that abortion is now illegal statewide as a result of the Supreme Court ruling, thanks to his own automatic law, to be ratified by the state governor, Greg Abbott.

REACTIONS

The former president of the United States Donald Trump, and the leader of the Republican minority in the United States Senate, Mitch McConnell, have applauded the decision of the Supreme Court, an instance with a majority of conservative judges thanks to the changes introduced throughout the mandate presidential election of the US tycoon, thanks to the maneuvers of his right hand in the US Congress.

"This is following the Constitution and giving back rights when they should have been granted a long time ago," Trump told Fox News about a ruling "that will work for everyone and return to the states the powers that have always belonged to them." .

McConnell, for his part, has applauded a decision "as brave as it is correct" in a victory "for the most vulnerable population" thanks to Trump's decisions to elect conservative justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, who have voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, as have Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Samuel Alito, and Justice Clarence Thomas.

Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elana Kagan, all Democratic appointees, dissented from the majority opinion.

House Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has also applauded a ruling that "will save countless innocent lives."

"The Supreme Court is right to return to the states and their elected representatives the power to protect the unborn. We will work to continue to reject these extreme policies that allow late-term abortion with taxpayer money," he added. in a statement collected by the NBC network.

Former Vice President Mike Pence, one of the great representatives of evangelical conservatism in the Republican Party, has also applauded the decision. "Today he won his life," Pence has made known. "I congratulate most of the judges for sticking to the courage of their convictions," he added.

While the US media are reporting an upcoming appearance by the President of the United States, Joe Biden, to discuss the issue, the Speaker of the House of Representatives and leader of the Democratic Party in the lower house of Congress, Nancy Pelosi, has criticized the failure of the Supreme to achieve a "dark and extreme objective" planted by the previous Republican administration.

"Thanks to Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, the Republican Party and their majority on the Supreme Court, American women today have less freedom than their mothers," she wrote in a statement.

Groups for the defense of the right to abortion, such as the Guttmacher Institute, have also criticized the "anti-abortion ideologues" of the Supreme Court for "unleashing uncertainty and pain on people who ask for nothing more than to exercise their fundamental right to bodily autonomy." , according to its president and CEO, Dr. Herminia Palacio.

The NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) has also criticized the ruling and recalled that "access to abortion is essential to guarantee many fundamental human rights, including the rights to life and security of the person; privacy; non-discrimination; and free of cruelty, inhuman or degrading treatment, among others," according to its deputy director and head of the division for women's rights, Amanda Klasing.

"All these rights are recognized in international law through treaties ratified by the United States," he added.

For Amnesty International, the Supreme Court's ruling represents "a sad milestone in the country's history," in the words of the head of Amnesty USA for government affairs, Tarah Demant.

"The millions of people who can become pregnant in the United States face a future in which they will not be able to make deeply personal decisions that affect their bodies, their futures and the well-being of their families. This resolution affects each and every one of people in the United States, regardless of their ability to have a pregnancy," she lamented.

For Amnesty, what happened is "the result of several decades of a campaign aimed at controlling the bodies of women, girls and other people who are likely to become pregnant, and paves the way for the adoption of unprecedented state legislation to criminalize abortion." warns the NGO.