A new US state, Idaho, has passed a law authorizing civil lawsuits against medical professionals performing voluntary terminations of pregnancy (abortion), the latest episode in a vast conservative offensive to curtail the right to abortion in the country.
This law, signed Wednesday by the governor, allows families of women who have undergone an abortion – as well as the fathers of the fetus even if it is the result of rape – to file a complaint against the clinics or doctors who carried out the abortion. ‘intervention. It is modeled after a similar law that has generated considerable controversy in Texas.
Defender of the rights of “unborn babies”
The governor of Idaho, Brad Little, has claimed to be an ardent defender of the rights of “unborn babies” but worried that this law, which amounts “to delegating the power to private citizens to impose heavy fines . . . for the purpose of escaping the scrutiny of the courts” be declared contrary to the Constitution of the United States.
Such an approach undermines institutions and “weakens our collective freedoms”, he warns in a letter addressed to local parliamentarians.
Taking up the arguments of critics of the Texas law, Governor Little notes that this type of law could end up turning against other rights dear to conservatives, such as the right to own and carry a firearm.
The new law has been denounced by human rights defenders as well as the White House.
Text “irresponsible and politically motivated which will do harm”.
“Legislators have openly bragged about this law as a ‘clever’ way to limit access to abortion” by circumventing justice, said Lauren Bramwell, of a powerful civil rights organization, denouncing a “irresponsible and politically motivated text that will do harm”.
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki called the Texas law and its siblings a crude attempt to undermine the Supreme Court’s decision, the landmark “Roe v. Wade” of 1973, which guarantees the right of women to have an abortion during the first two trimesters of pregnancy.
“Over the past six months, Texas law has had profoundly negative effects, forcing women to travel hundreds of miles to access care,” she said, noting that the impact of such laws was particularly strong on women with low incomes and living in rural areas.
Restrictive or on the contrary protective, bills on abortion are sweeping through the parliaments of the American states by the hundreds in anticipation of a decision by the Supreme Court likely to upset the legal framework in force for nearly 50 years in the United States. .
A total of 1,844 measures related to contraception and abortion were introduced in 46 states between January 1 and March 15, counted the Guttmacher research institute, which campaigns for the right of women to control their bodies. .