(Washington) The Chamber of Representatives of Texas has given the green light to a text that authorizes citizens to prosecute anyone facilitating the delivery of the abortive pill in this conservative American state, where abortion is largely prohibited.
Voted Thursday by the House, this bill must still be adopted by the local Senate, a majority of republican, then promulgated by the conservative governor Greg Abbott.
This legislation marks a new victory for the anti-abortion movement in the United States, galvanized since a decision of the Supreme Court of 2022 which led to a spectacular decline in the right to abortion in many states of the country.
If it does not provide for legal proceedings against women seeking to obtain it, the text prohibits prescription, manufacturing or the sending of abortive pills.
If it is adopted, it would allow any citizen, privately, without even being involved, to prosecute any potential for potential, with damages amounting to at least 100,000 dollars.
The elected Republican Tony Tinderholt said he was “proud” to have voted for this legislation, on the social network X, welcoming a text which, according to him, “prohibits abortive pills in Texas and protects children to be born”.
ACLU, a major organization for the defense of civil freedoms, condemned a bill which “exports the extreme ban on abortion far beyond the borders of the state” of Texas.
“This will fuel the fear of manufacturers and caregivers at the national level, while encouraging surveillance between reproductive neighbors, isolating more pregnant Texans and punishing those who take care of them,” said Blair Wallace, from Aclu Texas, in a press release.
By canceling the judgment in 2022 Roe c. Wadeguarantee of the voluntary termination of pregnancy (abortion) at the national level, the Supreme Court made states the only competent in the matter. Since then, around twenty has prohibited or very strongly restricted access to abortion.
Texas prohibits any voluntary termination of pregnancy, including in case of incest or rape. Only exceptions: in the event of danger of death or risk of serious handicap for the mother.
A doctor from New York has recently been sentenced to a fine of $ 100,000 in Texas and is prosecuted in criminal in Louisiana, for prescribing abortive pills remotely for resident patients in these southern states.
