The US Supreme Court on Thursday suspended a restrictive abortion law passed in the state of Louisiana in what was the first decision on abortion of the High Court since the arrival of President Donald Trump.
With five votes in favor – the four progressives and the conservative John G. Roberts Jr. – and four against – the rest of the conservatives – the Supreme Court blocked the implementation of the norm while the magistrates studied their constitutionality more thoroughly.
The restrictive law requires doctors who practice abortion in Louisiana to enjoy admission rights in a hospital 30 miles (about 50 kilometers) from their clinic.
His critics had denounced that the rule would leave a single doctor qualified to practice the procedure in a state of 4.7 million inhabitants that has an annual demand of about 10,000 abortions.
Thursday’s decision is the first that the Supreme Court has taken on abortion since Trump came to the White House and put two conservative magistrates – Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, both with the support of anti-abortion groups.
These groups hope that the conservative current led by Trump will push the Supreme Court to reverse the legalization of abortion that it approved in 1973.
The last time the High Court had ruled on abortion was in 2016 when it declared “unconstitutional” a Texas law very similar to that of Louisiana that is under study.
On that occasion, also five magistrates – one of them conservative – overturned the rule on the grounds that it did not offer benefits for women’s health and that it constituted an obstacle to their constitutional right to undergo an abortion.
The ruling on Texas law was considered the Supreme Court’s most important decision on abortion since it was legalized in 1973 by declaring unconstitutional any state interference in a woman’s decision on pregnancy.
In recent years, several states of conservative tendencies have tried to overcome this ruling by adopting regulations that hinder access to abortion protected by religious rights or women’s health. (EFE) .-
