Washington: The US Supreme Court will Monday hear two challenges to the highly controversial Texas state law banning near-total abortions. The high court has taken the cases up with unusual speed, but a ruling could take weeks or months, Xinhua news agency quoted an NBC News report as saying.
One of the challenges comes from the Department of Justice, while the other is from Whole Woman’s Health, said the report.
Taking effect from September as reportedly the most restrictive one in the country, the Texas law prohibits abortions once cardiac activity is detected in an embryo, which can happen as early as about six weeks before many women are aware they are pregnant.
The fetal heartbeat law makes no exceptions for pregnancies resulting from incest or rape.
Furthermore, it allows most US citizens, no matter where they live, to file lawsuits against abortion providers who they think infringed on the policy.
President Joe Biden earlier this year called the Texas law “extreme” saying it “blatantly violates the constitutional right established under Roe v. Wade,” the Supreme Court’s landmark decision adopted in 1973 legalising abortion in the country.
The Biden administration argues that the private enforcement regime is a transparent attempt to shield what they see as a blatantly unconstitutional ban and that if the scheme were allowed to stand, it could allow states to undermine other constitutional rights in similar ways.
The high court is also reportedly to hear in December another case over a Mississippi abortion restriction that is directly challenging the landmark 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade.