Tag Archives: Abortion

Mexican Supreme Court decriminalizes abortion in historic shift

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Mexico’s Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Tuesday that penalizing abortion is unconstitutional, a major victory for advocates of women’s health and human rights, just as parts of the United States enact tougher laws against the practice.

The court ruling in the majority Roman Catholic nation follows moves to decriminalize abortion at state level, although most of the country still has tough laws in place against women terminating their pregnancy early.

“This is a historic step for the rights of women,” said Supreme Court Justice Luis Maria Aguilar.

A number of U.S. states have recently taken steps to restrict women’s access to abortion, particularly Texas, which last week enacted the strictest anti-abortion law in the country after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene.

The Mexican ruling opens the door to the possibility for the release of women incarcerated for having had abortions. It could also lead to U.S. women in states such as Texas deciding to travel south of the border to terminate their pregnancies.

In July, the state of Veracruz became just the fourth of Mexico’s 32 regions to decriminalize abortion.

(Reporting by Lizbeth Diaz in Mexico City; writing by Laura Gottesdiener; Editing by Sandra Maler)

Analysis: U.S. Supreme Court’s rightward lurch put Roe v. Wade on the brink

By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – During a 2016 presidential debate, then-candidate Donald Trump made a statement that seemed brash at the time: If he were elected and got the chance to nominate justices to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion would be overturned.

By this time next year, with the court having tilted further to the right thanks to Trump’s three appointments to the nation’s highest court, his prediction could come true.

The court’s decision on Wednesday night to allow Texas’ six-week abortion ban to go into effect in apparent contravention of the 1973 Roe decision suggests the court is closer than ever to overturning a ruling U.S. conservatives have long reviled.

“We don’t know how quickly or openly the court will reverse Roe, but this decision suggests that it’s only a matter of time,” said Mary Ziegler, an expert on abortion history at Florida State University College of Law.

Two generations of American women have grown up with access to abortion, although its use has declined over the past decade.

But while Roe handed liberals a victory on a crucial issue of the times, it also helped to power the religious right into a galvanizing force as it worked to get the decision overturned.

Since Congress never acted to formalize abortion rights – which shows what a hot button issue it is politically – the same court that once legalized abortion has the power to allow states to ban it.

In the coming months, the court will weigh whether to throw Roe out altogether as the justices consider whether to uphold a 15-week abortion ban in the state of Mississippi.

Unlike the Texas dispute, in which the justices did not directly address whether Roe should be reversed, they will in the Mississippi case.

A ruling is due by the end of June 2022, just months before an election that will determine whether the Democrats retain their narrow majority in both houses of Congress.

The last time the Supreme Court was this close to overturning Roe, in 1992, opponents were bitterly disappointed when the court’s moderates banded together and upheld abortion rights. Although the Supreme Court had a conservative majority, it was not deemed conservative enough.

MCCONNELL’S ROLE

The reason why the outcome could be different now is in part thanks to the decades-long efforts of conservative legal activists to re-shape the court, which bore fruit during Trump’s presidency. Trump was aided by then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell as well as the death of liberal icon Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, which gave him a third vacancy to fill just before he lost the November 2020 election.

All three Trump nominees were pre-vetted by conservative lawyers associated with the Federalist Society legal group. All three — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — were in the majority as the court allowed the Texas abortion law to go into effect.

The court now has a rock-solid 6-3 conservative majority, which means that even if one peels away – as Chief Justice John Roberts did on Wednesday and in another abortion case in 2020 – the conservative bloc still retains the upper hand.

Conservative Republican McConnell played a key role in the Senate, which has the job of confirming nominees to the bench.

Democrats’ hopes were raised early in 2016, when conservative Justice Antonin Scalia died, that what had been a 5-4 conservative majority on the high court could switch to a 5-4 liberal majority for the first time in decades. McConnell crushed those dreams, refusing to move forward with then-Democratic President Barack Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland.

As a result, when Trump came into office in early 2017 he was able to immediately nominate Gorsuch, who was duly confirmed by McConnell’s Republican-led Senate.

Trump and McConnell then pushed through the nomination of Kavanaugh to replace the retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy in 2018 despite allegations of sexual misconduct against the nominee, which he denied. Kennedy was a conservative but had voted to uphold abortion rights in key cases, including in 1992.

Finally, in September 2020, Ginsburg died. In an unprecedented move, Trump and McConnell installed Barrett just days before Election Day on Nov. 7, leading to widespread accusations of hypocrisy but cementing the conservative majority.

Despite the favorable winds, some anti-abortion advocates are playing down the importance of the Supreme Court’s Texas ruling, and say the fate of Roe v Wade is still up in the air.

“I’ve long thought the court should overturn Roe because it is not based on what the Constitution actually says,” said John Bursch, a lawyer at conservative Christian legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, before adding: “This order doesn’t give a signal either way about what the majority will do in the Mississippi case.”

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Scott Malone and Sonya Hepinstall)

Biden vows to protect Roe v. Wade after Texas abortion law takes effect

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Joe Biden condemned the Texas law that went into effect on Wednesday which prohibits the vast majority of abortions in the state, and pledged his administration would fight to protect the constitutional right to abortion as laid out in the landmark Roe v. Wade case.

“The Texas law will significantly impair women’s access to the health care they need, particularly for communities of color and individuals with low incomes,” Biden said in a statement. “And, outrageously, it deputizes private citizens to bring lawsuits against anyone who they believe has helped another person get an abortion.”

(Reporting by Lisa Lambert, Editing by Franklin Paul)

Texas’s near-total abortion ban takes effect after Supreme Court inaction

By Andrew Chung and Gabriella Borter

(Reuters) -A Texas ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy took effect on Wednesday after the U.S. Supreme Court did not act on a request by abortion rights groups to block the law, which would prohibit the vast majority of abortions in the state.

Abortion providers worked until almost the midnight deadline, when the court’s inaction allowed the most restrictive ban in the country to be enforced while litigation continues in the groups’ lawsuit challenging its constitutionality.

The law amounts to a near-total ban on abortion procedures given that 85% to 90% of abortions occur after six weeks of pregnancy, and would likely force many clinics to close, the groups said.

Such a ban has never been permitted in any state since the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that legalized abortion nationwide, in 1973, they said.

At Whole Women’s Health in Fort Worth, clinic staff worked up to midnight, serving 25 patients in the 2-1/2 hours before the deadline, said spokeswoman Jackie Dilworth.

The national group said its Texas locations, also including Austin and McKinney, remained open on Wednesday.

“We are providing all abortion medication and abortion procedures, but as long as the patient has no embryonic or fetal cardiac activity,” Dilworth said. “Our doors are still open, and we’re doing everything we can to come within the law but still provide abortion care to those who need us.”

Planned Parenthood and other women’s health providers, doctors and clergy members challenged the law in federal court in Austin in July, contending it violated the constitutional right to an abortion.

The law, signed on May 19, is unusual in that it gives private citizens the power to enforce it by enabling them to sue abortion providers and anyone who “aids or abets” an abortion after six weeks. Citizens who win such lawsuits would be entitled to at least $10,000.

Abortion providers say the law could lead to hundreds of costly lawsuits that would be logistically difficult to defend.

In a legal filing, Texas officials told the justices to reject the abortion providers’ request, saying the law “may never be enforced against them by anyone.”

“Texas Right to Life is thankful that the Texas Heartbeat Act is now in effect. We are now the first state ever to enforce a heartbeat law. We still await word from SCOTUS,” spokeswoman Kimberlyn Schwartz said in a statement, using an acronym for Supreme Court of the United States.

‘ALL-OUT EFFORT’

Democratic U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi blasted the Texas move.

“This radical law is an all-out effort to erase the rights and protections of Roe v Wade,” Pelosi wrote on Twitter. Using the legislation’s number, she added, “we will fight SB8 and all immoral and dangerous attacks on women’s health and freedoms with all our strength.”

A court could still put the ban on hold, and no court has yet ruled on its constitutionality, Stephen Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law, wrote in a tweet.

“Despite what some will say, this isn’t the ‘end’ of Roe,” he wrote.

Texas is among a dozen mostly Republican-led states that have enacted “heartbeat” abortion bans, which outlaw the procedure once the rhythmic contracting of fetal cardiac tissue can be detected, often at six weeks – sometimes before a woman realizes she is pregnant.

Courts have blocked such bans.

The state of Mississippi has asked the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade in a major case the justices agreed to hear over a 2018 law banning abortion after 15 weeks.

The justices will hear arguments in their next term, which begins in October, with a ruling due by the end of June 2022.

The Texas challenge seeks to prevent judges, county clerks and other state entities from enforcing the law.

A federal judge rejected a bid to dismiss the case, prompting an immediate appeal to the New Orleans, Louisiana-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which halted further proceedings.

On Sunday, the 5th Circuit denied a request by the abortion providers to block the law pending the appeal. The providers then asked the Supreme Court for an emergency ruling.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung in New York and Gabriella Borter in Washington; Editing by Scott Malone, Gerry Doyle and Jonathan Oatis)

Abortion providers ask U.S. Supreme Court to block Texas’ six-week ban

By Andrew Chung

(Reuters) – Abortion rights groups filed an emergency request at the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday to block a Texas law banning abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, which is set to take effect on Wednesday.

The groups, including Planned Parenthood and other abortion and women’s health providers, told the court that the law would “immediately and catastrophically reduce abortion access in Texas, barring care for at least 85% of Texas abortion patients” and would likely force many abortion clinics to close.

The groups challenged the law in federal court in Austin in July, contending it violates a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion.

The law, signed on May 19, is unusual in that it gives private citizens the power to enforce it by enabling them to sue anyone who assists a woman in getting an abortion past the six-week cutoff.

The law is among of a number of “heartbeat” abortion bans enacted in Republican-led states. These laws seek to ban the procedure once the rhythmic contracting of fetal cardiac tissue can be detected, often at six weeks – sometimes before a woman realizes she is pregnant.

Courts have blocked such bans as a violation of Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion nationwide.

The state of Mississippi has asked the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade in a major case the justices agreed to hear over a 2018 law banning abortion after 15 weeks. The justices will hear arguments in their term that begins in October, with a ruling due by the end of June 2022.

The Texas lawsuit seeks to prevent judges, county clerks and other state entities from enforcing the law through citizen lawsuits. The plaintiffs also sued the director of an anti-abortion group that they said has threatened enforcement actions under the new law.

A federal judge rejected a bid to dismiss the case, prompting an immediate appeal to the New Orleans, Louisiana-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which halted further proceedings in the case. On Sunday, the 5th Circuit denied a request by the abortion providers to block the law pending the appeal.

The plaintiffs on Monday asked the Supreme Court to block the Texas law or allow proceedings in the lower court to continue.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung in New York, additional reporting by Gabriella Borter; Editing by Scott Malone and Jonathan Oatis)

Abortion rights advocates sue Texas over 6-week abortion ban

By Gabriella Borter

(Reuters) – Several abortion rights groups filed a federal lawsuit in Texas on Tuesday seeking to block a new state law banning abortion after six weeks and enabling individuals to sue anyone who assists a woman in getting an abortion past that point.

The lawsuit contends the Texas law violates a woman’s constitutional right to get an abortion before the fetus is viable and would cause “profound harm” to providers. It was filed by the Center for Reproductive Rights, the American Civil Liberties Union, women’s health provider Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers and funds.

The law, signed on May 19 and due to take effect on Sept. 1, is one of nearly a dozen “heartbeat” abortion bans passed in Republican-led states. These laws seek to ban abortion once the rhythmic contracting of fetal cardiac tissue can be detected, often at six weeks – sometimes before a woman realizes she is pregnant.

Legal challenges have prevented these bans from taking effect. Judges have ruled that they violate Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 landmark ruling that guaranteed a woman’s right to end her pregnancy before the fetus is viable, at around 24 weeks. Lawmakers who have voted for “heartbeat” measures have said they are intended to prompt the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade.

The high court has opened the door to possibly overturning or narrowing Roe v. Wade, agreeing in May to review Mississippi’s bid to ban abortions after 15 weeks in its next session.

Unlike other state bans, the Texas measure leaves its enforcement largely to citizens, who can sue anyone who “knowingly engages in conduct that aids or abets” an abortion that violates provisions of the law, “including paying for or reimbursing the costs of an abortion through insurance or otherwise.”

Citizens who win such lawsuits would be entitled to at least $10,000, the law states.

The federal lawsuit filed Tuesday argues that abortion providers and staff could be forced to defend hundreds of “vigilante enforcement lawsuits” under the law and would consequently “accrue catastrophic financial liability” and “suffer profound harm to their property, business, reputations and a deprivation of their own constitutional rights.”

“If this oppressive law takes effect, it will decimate abortion access in Texas-and that’s exactly what it is designed to do,” Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a statement.

The lawsuit targets state court judges, county clerks, the attorney general and state medical officials and asks that the federal court prevent those entities from enforcing the law or accepting citizen lawsuits.

“We’re confident in the innovative and carefully drafted nature of the Texas heartbeat act that it will be upheld and go into effect in September,” Texas Right to Life’s senior legislative associate Rebecca Parma said. The anti-abortion advocacy group’s East Chapter director is named as a defendant in the suit.

Governor Greg Abbott signed the bill and celebrated its passage in a video posted on Facebook.

“Our creator endowed us with the right to life, and yet millions of children lose their right to life every year because of abortion. In Texas we work to save those lives.” Abbott said.

(Reporting by Gabriella Borter; Editing by David Gregorio)

Gender equality makes democracy stronger, says Kamala Harris

PARIS (Reuters) – Women deprived of freedom of speech or the freedom to vote should fight for their rights and know that the United States stands beside them, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris said on Wednesday.

Harris told the Generation Equality Forum at a summit hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron that gender equality was paramount to strengthening democracy.

“Use the tools for democracy, whether that is the freedom of speech or the freedom to vote. And if you do not yet have those freedoms, fight for them and know we will fight alongside you,” Harris told the summit by video link.

Democracy was in peril in countries around the world, Harris said.

“If we want to strengthen democracy, we must fight for gender equality. Because here is the truth: Democracy is strongest when everyone participates and it is weaker when people are left out,” the vice president said.

Two months after entering office, Harris said President Joe Biden’s administration would revitalize Washington’s partnership with U.N. Women – a U.N. body dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women.

Under former President Donald Trump, the United States led a push at the United Nations against the promotion of women’s sexual and reproductive rights and health because it saw that as code for abortion.

Harris struck a different tone.

“When women have access to reproductive healthcare to stay healthy, they can participate more fully and our democracy grows stronger,” she said.

Melinda Gates said the Gates Foundation would direct $2.1 billion in new money to strengthening gender equality. More than half would go to sexual health and reproductive rights, while $100 million would be spent on helping get women into positions of power in government and the workplace.

“Women should not only have a seat at the table, they should be in every single room where policy and decisions are being made,” Gates said.

(Reporting by Elizabeth Pineau; Writing by Richard Lough; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Gibraltar votes to ease strict abortion law

By Marco Trujillo

GIBRALTAR (Reuters) -Gibraltar voted to ease a strict abortion law, officials said on Friday, after a referendum which some locals said marked a long overdue advancement of women’s rights in the tiny British territory.

Around 62% of voters who took part backed the change in Thursday’s ballot, where turnout was about 52% of the 23,000 odd eligible voters, Gibraltar’s parliament said.

“Gibraltar does have to keep up with the times, you cannot live in the past,” said Jacqueline, a Gibraltarian woman who declined to give her last name, on Friday morning.

The vote “is an excellent result for women,” chief minister Fabian Picardo, who backed ‘yes’ in a divisive campaign, said on Twitter. “We will also work to introduce the new services we will require to ensure counselling and safe and legal abortions,” he added.

Criminal law in the British enclave on Spain’s southern tip had banned abortion in all circumstances, with a maximum punishment in theory of life in prison. While no one has ever been convicted, citizens and residents were forced to go to Spain or travel to Britain to have an abortion.

The referendum had originally been scheduled for March 2020, but was postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Even with the amendment approved on Thursday, the law remains more restrictive than in most of the rest of Europe.

The amendment to the criminal law approved by the referendum allows pregnancies to be terminated by a registered physician within the first 12 weeks in cases where the pregnancy carries more risk to the mother’s health than termination.

Abortions would be permitted at a later stage of pregnancy under a narrow set of circumstances.

Pro-life groups, who opposed the new bill, say the wording of the law could be interpreted in a way that would ultimately allow most abortions after 12 weeks of conception.

Others said the bill did not encourage abortion but that it was important the choice should rest with the woman.

“I am not pro-abortion, but I am pro-choice,” said Sheela, another Gibraltar resident. “I think every person should have, at the end of the day, their own right to do what they want.”

(Reporting by Marco Trujillo in GIBRALTAR and Inti Landauro in MADRID; Editing by Andrei Khalip and Philippa Fletcher)

Gibraltar votes in referendum on easing strict abortion law

By Jon Nazca and Marco Trujillo

GIBRALTAR (Reuters) – Gibraltarians voted in a referendum on Thursday on whether the tiny British territory on the southern tip of Spain should ease one of the strictest abortion laws in Europe.

Its criminal law bans abortion in all circumstances, with a maximum punishment in theory of life in prison. While no one has been convicted, citizens and residents are forced to go to Spain or travel to Britain to have an abortion.

“I think we should be able to have an abortion here, we shouldn’t have to go to a different country just to have an abortion,” 20-year-old student Geraldine told Reuters after casting her vote.

“At the end of the day it is our body, our choice. Other people shouldn’t make the choice for us,” added the student, one of 23,000 Gibraltarians eligible to vote.

The referendum had originally been scheduled for March 2020, but was postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Although penalties are tough, not a single woman or doctor has ever been convicted under the law, a Gibraltar government spokeswoman said.

The referendum is on an amendment to the criminal law that would allow pregnancies to be terminated by a registered physician within the first 12 weeks in cases where the pregnancy carried more risk to the mother’s health than termination.

Abortions would be permitted at a later stage under a narrow set of circumstances.

Even if the changes are approved, the law would be far more restrictive than in most of the rest of Europe.

Pro-life groups say that the wording of the law could be interpreted in a way that would ultimately allow most abortions.

“I’m supporting ‘No’ because I believe life begins at conception and life is sacred and it should be respected until the moment of death,” Susan Gomez, 52, who is a member of the Gibraltar pro-life movement, told Reuters.

“We should give (women who are pregnant) all the support in the world so that abortion never happens”, she said.

Both the government, which has backed the proposed changes, and opposition parties in the enclave encouraged people to vote.

“The government will act in keeping with the views of the people of Gibraltar as expressed … whichever of the two results may come out,” Fabian Picardo, Gibraltar’s chief minister, said.

(Reporting by Jon Nazca and Marco Trujillo in Gibraltar. Writing by Emma Pinedo in Madrid)

Federal appeals court blocks Missouri ban on abortions after 8 weeks

By Gabriella Borter

(Reuters) – A panel of federal appeals court judges blocked a Missouri law on Wednesday that banned abortions after eight weeks of pregnancy, saying the provisions of the law violated the constitutional right of women to end their pregnancies.

The law is among more than a dozen gestational age abortion bans that have been passed in recent years by Republican-led legislatures and challenged for their violation of the United States Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade, which said women have a right to abortion before the fetus is viable, between 24 and 28 weeks.

U.S. District Judge Howard Sachs in Kansas City had temporarily halted the Missouri law just days before it was due to go into effect in August 2019, saying it would negatively impact the rights of Missouri women. The decision on Wednesday by a three-judge panel in the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed Sachs’ ruling.

“Bans on pre-viability abortions are categorically unconstitutional,” Judge Jane Kelly wrote in the opinion.

Abortion is one of the most divisive issues in the United States, with opponents declaring it immoral on religious grounds and abortion rights advocates saying the option is necessary to ensure women’s bodily autonomy.

Women’s health provider Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties union filed the lawsuit challenging the 2019 ban, which only made exceptions for abortions after eight weeks in cases where there are medical emergencies. The law also banned women from seeking abortions because the fetus had Down’s Syndrome.

“Today’s decision is a critical victory for Missourians,” said Yamelsie Rodríguez, president of Reproductive Health Services of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region, in a statement.

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt said in a statement that he was “disappointed” in the Eighth Circuit’s decision.

“We plan to seek review in the Supreme Court,” he said. “I have never and will never stop fighting to ensure that all life is protected.”

Last month, the Supreme Court signaled its willingness to weaken or overturn Roe v. Wade when it agreed to review a Mississippi law that would ban abortions before the fetus is able to live outside the womb. A decision in that case is expected in 2022.

(Reporting by Gabriella Borter; Editing by Aurora Ellis)