(Washington) President Joe Biden on Friday decried the passage of a “dangerous” law by the Florida parliament, which reduced the legal threshold for abortion in this southeastern state from 24 to 15 weeks of pregnancy. -United.
Posted at 11:26
The law, passed Thursday night by Republican lawmakers in the state Senate, provides exceptions if there is a “serious risk” to the woman’s health or a lethal fetal abnormality, but not in cases of rape or of incest.
Already adopted by the Florida House of Representatives, the text, which is part of an ongoing offensive in all Republican states, must now be promulgated by Governor Ron DeSantis, who supports it.
It is a “dangerous law that will significantly restrict women’s access to reproductive health care,” tweeted the Democratic president, without using the term “abortion” that this devout Catholic is reluctant to mention.
“My government will fight against the continued erosion of women’s constitutional rights,” he added.
The Florida law is comparable to a text from Mississippi, the legality of which is under review by the United States Supreme Court. The highest court in the country, profoundly overhauled by Donald Trump, must render its decision before the end of June.
During the examination of the file, its conservative judges, now ultra-majority (six out of nine) let it be understood that they could take advantage of this file to reduce or even cancel the right to abortion. Recognized in the landmark case “Roe v. Wade” of 1973, this right is valid today as long as the fetus is not viable, that is towards the end of the second trimester.
Galvanized by the court’s conservative majority, several Republican states have recently passed very restrictive abortion laws. Texas has gone the furthest by prohibiting the termination of any pregnancy as soon as the embryo’s heartbeat is perceptible, approximately four weeks after fertilization.
Florida, like Arizona or West Virginia, preferred to follow a middle path. Their bet? If the Court simply reduces the legal threshold for abortion, their laws may remain in force.