The US Supreme Court on Friday upheld Texas legislation banning abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, CNN reported. The judges said abortion providers had the right to challenge the law in federal court.
The ruling Supreme Court means the case will return to the district court for further action, according to the US news channel. That opens the possibility of the law being suspended.
The Texas abortion law has been in effect for more than three months. On September 1, the Supreme Court gave the green light to the law. Since then, women in Texas have crossed state lines to terminate pregnancies after six weeks. CNN writes that poor women who do not have the resources to do so have few options.
Lawyers who challenged the abortion law called the law unconstitutional and said it nullified a woman’s constitutional right to abortion. Abortion is prohibited by law as soon as a fetal heartbeat is detected, but often a woman does not know she is pregnant after six weeks. In the rest of the United States, abortion is permitted up to 24 weeks of pregnancy.
Conservative forces are attacking this 1973 Supreme Court principled ruling (Roe v. Wade ruling) that allows abortion as long as the fetus is not viable. There is also a case pending in the Supreme Court regarding abortion law in Mississippi.
An unusual feature of Texas law is that individuals can take civil court action against anyone who assists in an abortion. This ranges from a taxi driver who takes a woman to an abortion clinic to parents who financially help their daughter terminate a pregnancy.
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