It is a victory for the Biden administration, two months following the High Court judgment of June 24, which buried the constitutional right of American women to obtain an abortion. A US federal judge blocked, Wednesday, August 24, a part of the law banning almost all abortions in Idaho (Northwest). Thus, the State will not be able to prosecute doctors who perform voluntary termination of pregnancy (IVG) to protect the health of the woman, decided Judge Barry Lynn Winmill. This suspension will continue until the end of a legal action challenging the ban on abortion, he added.
Idaho, a rural and conservative state in the American West, was among the first to adopt a new law following the U.S. Supreme Court’s regarding-face on the right to abortion at the end of June . The very restrictive text, which authorizes abortions only to save the life of a pregnant woman, comes into force on Thursday.
Attorney General Merrick Garland had asked the court to block the law, saying it violated a federal law on medical emergencies because it did not provide an exception in case of “serious health hazard” of the pregnant woman and authorized lawsuits once morest doctors.
In his decision, Judge Barry Lynn Winmill, appointed in 1995 by Bill Clinton, pointed out that this case “does not carry the outdated constitutional right to abortion”. “This court does not have to decide this broader, deeper question”he wrote. “But the court is called upon to resolve a much more modest issue, namely whether Idaho’s abortion law conflicts with a small but important piece of federal legislation. It’s the case “a poursuivi M. Winmill.
Even if limited to a specific point, the decision constitutes a success – albeit relative – for the administration of Joe Biden. She “helps ensure that women in Idaho will receive the emergency medical care to which they are entitled under federal law”greeted the Minister Merrick Garland, Wednesday, in a statement.
A dozen states have already banned abortions on their soil and, eventually, half of the 50 states should do so. The residents of Kansas, a conservative state in the Midwest, have rejected in a referendum a proposal to remove the right to abortion enshrined in the Kansas Constitution.
