In 2007, the country’s capital, Mexico City, became the first to decriminalise abortion. In Latin America, elective abortion is legal in Colombia, Cuba, Uruguay and Argentina…reports Asian Lite News
The Supreme Court of Mexico has decriminalised abortion across the country, two years after it ruled in favour of a challenge to an existing law in Coahuila state saying that criminal penalties for terminating pregnancies were unconstitutional, the media reported on Thursday.
The new ruling which came on Wednesday, will legalise abortion across all 32 states, reports the BBC.
In its verdict, the court said that the denial of the possibility of a termination violated the human rights of women.
“In cases of rape, no girl can be forced to become a mother – neither by the state nor by her parents nor her guardians,” the BBC quoted Arturo Zaldivar, head of the Supreme Court, as saying.
“Here, the violation of her rights is more serious, not only because of her status as a victim, but also because of her age, which makes it necessary to analyse the issue from the perspective of the best interests of minors.”
In 2007, the country’s capital, Mexico City, became the first to decriminalise abortion. In Latin America, elective abortion is legal in Colombia, Cuba, Uruguay and Argentina.
While countries allow abortions in circumstances such as rape or health risks, outright bans apply in El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
Order to remove floating barriers on US-Mexico border
A federal judge has ruled that the state of Texas must remove floating barriers it set up to deter migrants from crossing the US-Mexico border in heavily trafficked areas of the Rio Grande river.
“Unfortunately for Texas, permission is exactly what federal law requires before installing obstructions in the nation’s navigable waters,” Federal District Judge David A. Ezra wrote in his order on Wednesday, issuing a preliminary injunction to remove these barriers and stop building further obstructions in the river.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s office immediately appealed Ezra’s ruling to the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, claiming that the state “is prepared to take this fight all the way to the US Supreme Court”.
“Today’s court decision merely prolongs President Biden’s willful refusal to acknowledge that Texas is rightfully stepping up to do the job that he should have been doing all along,” the Governor’s office said in a statement.
In the wake of the end of Title 42 in May, Abbott ordered the deployment of the 1,000-foot string of buoys in the middle of the border river next to Eagle Pass, western Texas, which shares the border with the Mexican city of Piedras Negras.
President Joe Biden’s administration filed a lawsuit against Texas in July, alleging that thr Republican-led state and its Governor violated the Rivers and Harbors Appropriation Act by building a structure in American waters without permission from the US Army Corps of Engineers.
The state argued that the barrier isn’t a structure that requires authorisation, and that it notified the International Boundary Water Commission, the binational body that regulates the Rio Grande, before the installlation.
The Mexican government has repreatedly condemned the establishment of water barriers in the Rio Grande, calling the Texas move a “violation of our sovereignty”.
“We express our concern about the impact on the human rights and personal safety of migrants that these state policies will have, which go in the opposite direction to the close collaboration between our country and the federal government of the US,” the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
Mike Pence, who has long made his evangelical faith central to his political identity, is one of the few Republican candidates to have spoken unequivocally about his support for such a ban.
Former US Vice President Mike Pence, who has declared his bid for the 2024 presidential election, challenged his Republican Party rivals to support a 15-week national abortion ban.
Addressing the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s annual conference in Washington D.C. on Friday, Pence said: “Let me say from my heart — the cause of life is the calling of our time and we must not rest and must not relent until we restore the sanctity of life to the centre of American law in every state in this country.”
The former Vice President, who has long made his evangelical faith central to his political identity, is one of the few Republican candidates to have spoken unequivocally about his support for such a ban, the BBC reported.
He further told the gathering that every Republican candidate for President should support 15 weeks “as a minimum nationwide standard” on abortion.
After the US Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion in the country last June, anti-abortion groups are trying to make a federal ban a key 2024 election issue.
Opinion polls have suggested that a majority of Americans back some form of legal abortion access, though public support for the procedure being legal drops notably by the end of the second trimester of a pregnancy.
Demonstrators protest against the Supreme Court’s overturning of the Roe vs. Wade abortion-rights ruling in San Francisco, California, the United States, on June 24, 2022. (Photo by Li Jianguo/Xinhua/IANS)
Some Republican candidates are however, wary of backing a 15-week pledge.
President Joe Biden, a Democrat, is expected to make abortion a central issue in his re-election campaign.
About 25 million women of child-bearing age live in a state with restricted or non-existent abortion services since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade last June.
Sensing the political risks, many Republican presidential candidates have skirted the issue of abortion bans.
Former President Donald Trump, whose conservative appointments to the Supreme Court paved the way for the US right to abortion being overturned, has backed away from endorsing a specific national ban, the BBC reported.
Former South Carolina Governor and UN Ambassador Nikki Haley has called a federal ban impossible.
Meanwhile, voters are also split on the issue. A February PRRI poll suggested that 44 per cent of Americans would support a 15-week ban on abortion, while 52 per cent opposed such a law.
A federal abortion ban would also have to pass both chambers of Congress and Republican efforts to pass such a law have failed in the past.
Demonstrators protest against the Supreme Court's overturning of the Roe vs. Wade abortion-rights ruling in San Francisco, California, the United States, on June 24, 2022. (Photo by Li Jianguo/Xinhua/IANS)
U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, on Friday ordered a hold on federal approval of mifepristone in a decision that overruled decades of scientific approval…reports Asian Lite News
A Texas judge who sparked a legal firestorm with an unprecedented ruling halting approval of the nation’s most common method of abortion is a former attorney for a religious liberty legal group with a long history pushing conservative causes.
U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, on Friday ordered a hold on federal approval of mifepristone in a decision that overruled decades of scientific approval. His ruling, which doesn’t take immediate effect, came practically at the same time that U.S. District Judge Thomas O. Rice, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, essentially ordered the opposite in a different case in Washington. The split likely puts the issue on an accelerated path to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Kacsmaryk, a former federal prosecutor and lawyer for the conservative First Liberty Institute, was confirmed in 2019 over fierce opposition by Democrats over his record opposing LGBTQ rights. He was among more than 230 judges installed to the federal bench under Trump as part of a movement by the Republican president and Senate conservatives to shift the American judiciary to the right.
He’s the sole district court judge in Amarillo — a city in the Texas panhandle — ensuring that all cases filed there land in front of him. And since taking the bench, he has ruled against the Biden administration on several other issues, including immigration and LGBTQ protections.
Interest groups of all kinds have long attempted to file lawsuits before judges they see as friendly to their points of view. But the number of conservative lawsuits filed in Amarillo has spawned accusations of “judge shopping” or that right-wing plaintiffs are seeking out Kacsmaryk because they know they’ll get a sympathetic ear.
“Why are all these cases being brought in Amarillo if the litigants who are bringing them are so confident in the strength of their claims? It’s not because Amarillo is convenient to get to,” said University of Texas law professor Stephen Vladeck. “I think it ought to alarm the judges themselves, that litigants are so transparently and shamelessly funneling cases to their courtroom.”
The Justice Department quickly appealed Kacsmaryk’s decision to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. And for now, the drug that the Food and Drug Administration approved in 2000 appeared to remain immediately available in the wake of the conflicting rulings in Texas and Washington.
Mifepristone blocks the hormone progesterone in the body and is used with the drug misoprostol to end pregnancy within the first 10 weeks. The lawsuit in the Texas case was filed by the Alliance Defending Freedom, which was also involved in the Mississippi case that led to Roe v. Wade being overturned.
Protesters gather outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., the United States, on June 24, 2022. The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday overturned Roe v. Wade, a landmark decision that established a constitutional right to abortion in the nation nearly 50 years ago. (Photo by Aaron Schwartz/Xinhua/IANS)
Legal experts warned of questionable arguments and factual inaccuracies in the suit for months, but Kacsmaryk essentially agreed with all the plaintiffs’ major points, including their contention the FDA didn’t adequately review mifepristone’s safety. Medical groups, by contrast, point out mifepristone has been used by millions of women over the past 23 years, and complications occur at a lower rate than with other routine procedures like wisdom teeth removal and colonoscopies.
During confirmation hearings before he took the bench, Kacsmaryk told lawmakers it would be “inappropriate” for a judge to allow their religious beliefs to impact a matter of law. He pledged to “faithfully apply all Supreme Court precedent.”
“As a judicial nominee, I don’t serve as as a legislator. I don’t serve as an advocate for counsel. I follow the law as it is written, not as I would have written it,” Kacsmaryk said at the time.
Before the abortion pill case, Kacsmaryk was at the center of a legal fight over Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy, which required tens of thousands of migrants seeking asylum to wait in Mexico for hearings in U.S. immigration court.
In 2021, he ordered that the policy be reinstated in response to a lawsuit filed by the states of Texas and Missouri. The U.S. Supreme Court overruled him and said that the Biden administration could end the policy, which it did last August. But in December Kacsmaryk ruled that the administration failed to follow federal rulemaking guidelines when terminating the practice, an issue that the Supreme Court didn’t address.
He has also ruled that allowing minors to obtain free birth control without parental consent at federally funded clinics violated parental rights and Texas law.
In other cases, he has ruled that the Biden administration wrongly interpreted part of the Affordable Care Act as prohibiting health care providers from discriminating against people because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. And he sided with Texas in ruling against Biden administration guidance that said employers can’t block workers from using a bathroom consistent with their gender identity.
In another case — brought by states challenging a Department of Labor rule — the Justice Department recently tried to get the case moved out of his district, writing in a court filing that “there is no apparent reason—other than judge shopping” that explains why the lawsuit was filed in Amarillo. In denying the bid to move the case, Kacsmaryk wrote that the law “does not require the Court to guess as to Plaintiffs’ subjective motivations for choosing” to file there.
Kacsmaryk’s decisions have been “consistent with what a lot of conservatives were hoping for, and a lot of progressives were fearful of,” said Daniel Bennett, an associate professor at John Brown University in Arkansas, who wrote a book on the conservative Christian legal movement. “This is not a judge who’s necessarily going to be riding the fence.”
Kacsmaryk’s detractors said his past writings and legal work revealed extremist views and animus toward gay and transgender people. In articles before being nominated, he wrote critically of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision that established a nationwide right to an abortion and the Obergefell decision that legalized same-sex marriage nationally.
In 2015, he slammed an effort to pass federal gender identity and sexual orientation protections, writing that doing so would “give no quarter to Americans who continue to believe and seek to exercise their millennia-old religious belief that marriage and sexual relations are reserved to the union of one man and one woman.”
A year later, he signed a letter that quoted another article as describing the “belief that one is trapped in the body of the wrong sex” as a “fixed, irrational belief” that is “appropriately described as a delusion.”
Kacsmaryk’s defenders say he has been unfairly maligned.
Mike Davis, founder of the Article III Project, a conservative judicial advocacy group, said Kacsmaryk has shown no evidence of bias on the bench. He noted that Kacsmaryk was deemed “qualified,” by the American Bar Association, which means he satisfied what the group describes as “very high standards with respect to integrity, professional competence and judicial temperament.”
“These allegations that he’s biased are completely unfounded and they unfairly conflate his legal advocacy with bigotry,” Davis said. “These Democrat politicians are sending a message to Christians and other people of faith that they are not allowed in the public square.”
Before joining the bench, Kacsmaryk worked as an assistant U.S. attorney in Texas and was involved in such cases as the prosecution of Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari, the former Texas Tech University student from Saudi Arabia convicted in a failed bomb plot.
In 2014, Kacsmaryk joined the First Liberty Institute, which calls itself the “largest legal organization in the nation dedicated exclusively to defending religious liberty for all Americans.” Kacsmaryk noted during his confirmation process that the group has represented all faiths.
Among the litigants he defended as the institute’s deputy general counsel was an Oregon bakery that refused to provide a cake for a same sex-couple’s wedding.
“Obviously, his decisions have been really disappointing to progressives and left-leaning folks and been very pleasing to those on the right,” Bennett said. “But that’s kind of the nature of our judicial branch right now, especially with these hot-button issues.”
Protesters gather outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., the United States, on June 24, 2022. The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday overturned Roe v. Wade, a landmark decision that established a constitutional right to abortion in the nation nearly 50 years ago. (Photo by Aaron Schwartz/Xinhua/IANS)
The bench said letting an unmarried woman suffer an unwanted pregnancy will be contrary to the object and spirit of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act…reports Asian Lite News
The Supreme Court on Thursday said live-in relationships have been recognised by it and denying an unmarried woman the right to a safe abortion violates her personal autonomy and freedom.
Noting said statutes have recognised the reproductive choice of a woman and her bodily integrity and autonomy and both these rights embody the notion that a choice must inhere in a woman on whether or not to bear a child, it said while allowing the examination of a 24-week pregnant unmarried woman by an AIIMS medical board to determine whether the pregnancy can be safely terminated without endangering her life.
A bench, headed by Justice D.Y. Chandrachud and comprising Justices Surya Kant and A.S. Bopanna, said: “A woman’s right to reproductive choice is an inseparable part of her personal liberty under Article 21 of Constitution. She has a sacrosanct right to bodily integrity.
“Denying an unmarried woman the right to a safe abortion violates her personal autonomy and freedom. Live-in relationships have been recognised by this court.”
The bench said letting an unmarried woman suffer an unwanted pregnancy will be contrary to the object and spirit of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act.
The bench said that the Parliament, by amending the MTP Act through Act 8 of 2021, intended to include unmarried women and single women within the ambit of the Act. This is evident from the replacement of the word ‘husband’ with ‘partner’ in explanation I of Section 3(2) of the Act, it added.
“Moreover, allowing the petitioner to terminate her pregnancy, on a proper interpretation of the statute, prima facie, falls within the ambit of the statute and the petitioner should not be denied the benefit on the ground that she is an unmarried woman,” it said.
The bench said the distinction between a married and unmarried woman does not bear a nexus to the basic purpose and object which is sought to be achieved by Parliament which is conveyed specifically by the provisions of Explanation 1 to Section 3 of the Act.
As the petitioner had moved the Delhi High Court before she had completed 24 weeks of pregnancy, the bench said the delay in the judicial process cannot work to her prejudice.
The top court asked the AIIMS, Delhi, Director to constitute a medical board in terms of the provisions of Section 3(2D) of the Act.
“In the event that the medical board concludes that the foetus can be aborted without danger to the life of the petitioner, a team of doctors at the AIIMS shall carry out the abortion in terms of the request which has been made before the High Court,” it said.
Citing the MTP amendment 2021, the bench said the parliamentary intent is clearly not to confine the beneficial provisions of the MTP Act only to a situation involving a matrimonial relationship. “On the contrary, a reference to the expression ‘any woman or her partner’ would indicate that a broad meaning and intent has been intended to be ascribed by Parliament. The statute has recognized the reproductive choice of a woman and her bodily integrity and autonomy,” it added.
The bench observed that both these rights embody the notion that a choice must inhere in a woman on whether or not to bear a child. “In recognising the right, the legislature has not intended to make a distinction between a married and unmarried woman, in her ability to make a decision on whether or not to bear the child,” it said.
The bench said prima facie, quite apart from the issue of constitutionality which has been addressed before the high court, it appears that it has taken an unduly restrictive view of the provisions of clause (c) of Rule 3B. “Clause (c) speaks of a change of marital status during an ongoing pregnancy and is followed in parenthesis by the words ‘widowhood and divorce’. The expression ‘change of marital status’ should be given a purposive rather than a restrictive interpretation. The expressions ‘widowhood and divorce’ need not be construed to be exhaustive of the category which precedes it,” it said.
On July 16, the Delhi High Court, while refusing to entertain a plea seeking termination of a 23-week pregnancy, observed that the petitioner, a 25-year-old unmarried Manipuri woman, whose pregnancy arises out of a consensual relationship, is clearly not covered by any of the clauses under the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Rules, 2003. The woman stated in her plea that she cannot give birth to the child as she is an unmarried woman and her partner has refused to marry her.
It further stated that giving birth out of wedlock will entail in her ostracisation and cause her mental agony. As she is solely a B.A. graduate who is non-working, she will not be able to raise and handle the child, the woman submitted in her petition, stating that she is not mentally prepared to be a mother and continuing with the pregnancy will lead to grave physical and mental injury for her.
The woman moved the top court, which entertained her plea, challenging this high court order.
The US Capitol Police said that they arrested 35 people including 17 members of Congress…reports Asian Lite News
More than a dozen Democratic members of Congress, including lawmaker Ilhan Omar, were arrested in Washington DC during an abortion rights protest in front of the Supreme Court on Tuesday (local time).
A video clip shared by Omar’s official Twitter handle showed the lawmaker pretending to be handcuffed as they were escorted away from the Supreme Court by police.
“Today I was arrested while participating in a civil disobedience action with my fellow Members of Congress outside the Supreme Court. I will continue to do everything in my power to raise the alarm about the assault on our reproductive rights!” Ilhan Omar tweeted.
The US Capitol Police said that they arrested 35 people including 17 members of Congress.
“Demonstrators are starting to block First Street, NE. It is against the law to block traffic, so officers are going to give our standard three warnings before they start making arrests,” the police tweeted.
“We made a total of 35 arrests for Crowding, Obstructing or Incommoding (DC Code SS 22-1307). That arrest number includes 17 Members of Congress,” the tweet added.
Apart from Omar, the detainee, as per CNN include — Assistant Speaker Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Barbara Lee of California, Jackie Speier of California, Sara Jacobs of California, Bonnie Watson Coleman of New Jersey, Andy Levin of Michigan, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, Madeline Dean of Pennsylvania, Cori Bush of Missouri, Carolyn Maloney of New York, Nydia Velazquez of New York, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Alma Adams of North Caroliimage.
Abortion rights supporters and those opposed to abortion rights have been demonstrating near the Supreme Court since the court’s decision to strike down abortion protections under Roe nearly a month ago, as per reports.
On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court of the US abolished abortion rights while overturning the constitutional right granted to women in a historical 1973 ruling called Roe vs Wade. Through this, abortion was legalized across the states.
The Supreme Court has struck down Roe vs Wade, eliminating the nearly 50-year-old constitutional right to abortion, and ruled that states may regulate the practice of it. (ANI)
President Joe Biden said that his administration will also “ensure access to pills that caused abortion in states where it was prohibited”, reports Asian Lite News
US President Joe Biden said that women travelling for abortions across the country will be protected by the federal government as millions of women have lost their constitutional reproductive right after the Supreme Court overturned its 50-year-old Roe v Wade decision.
Addressing a virtual meet of Democratic Governors on Friday, the President said that his administration will also “ensure access to pills that caused abortion in states where it was prohibited”, reports the BBC.
He also expressed his opinion that some states would attempt to arrest women who crossed state lines for abortion access.
“I don’t think people believe that’s going to happen. But it’s going to happen,” the BBC quoted the President as saying.
On June 24, the Supreme Court overturned the landmark decision that established a constitutional right to abortion in the nation.
The decision came after the Supreme Court had considered an appeal case involving a Mississippi law banning all abortions over 15 weeks gestational age except in certain circumstances.
Thirteen states have already severely curtailed or blocked abortion access since the court’s decision.
