US: Backlash in Court for Abortion Opponents

For the first time since the end of abortion rights in the United States, the Supreme Court of a US state guaranteed its citizens on Thursday, in the name of a local constitution, a major setback for abortion opponents.

South Carolina’s Supreme Court has struck down a law banning abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. “We believe that the right to privacy enshrined in our Constitution includes women’s decisions to have an abortion,” she said. It was for a similar reason that the US Supreme Court sanctified it in 1973’s Roe v. Wade, American Women’s Right to Abortion. But last June, in a historic move, he ruled the decision wrong and gave each state the freedom to legislate on the matter as it pleased.

Since then, the country has been divided between states that have imposed bans, mainly located in the south and center, and strengthened access to termination of pregnancy on their soil rather than on the coasts. The landscape is so fluid that every action is subject to appeals in local courts. Since June, containment measures have been put on hold in several states pending concrete results. The South Carolina Supreme Court is the first to issue a final decision.

“This is a huge victory for the protection of legal abortions in the South,” responded Planned Parenthood, which runs many clinics that perform abortions. This opens up new opportunities for women in the region that lack access to abortion, particularly in the states of Alabama and Tennessee.

However, this was not the end of the war. In its ruling, the South Carolina Supreme Court considered the right to respect for private life to be “limited” if done in a “reasonable” way. This may allow local lawmakers to introduce new restrictions.