Texas, Thursday, filed a complaint against a directive from the Joe Biden government authorizing emergency physicians to perform abortions when there is a risk to a pregnant woman’s life, even if local laws prohibit voluntary termination of pregnancy (IVG).
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The complaint, filed by Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, accuses the Democratic president of “mocking” the Supreme Court’s June 24 ruling, which gave each state the freedom to ban abortions on its territory.
According to that document, his government is “attempting to use federal law to convert every emergency department in the country into an open abortion clinic.”
The actions of the “radical and radical elected Republicans” were quickly criticized by the White House.
“It is unreasonable for a public official to take legal action to prevent women from receiving lifesaving emergency care, a right protected by US law,” Karen Jean-Pierre, a spokeswoman for JO, said in a statement.
The Texas complaint follows a letter Monday from Health Secretary Xavier Becerra to emergency physicians working at federally funded hospitals.
He wrote to them that federal law “protects your clinical judgment and the actions you take to stabilize your pregnant patients, regardless of any restrictions in the state in which you practice.”
The minister adds that if a doctor believes an abortion is necessary to resolve a medical emergency, “he should perform it.” Federal law “eliminates” state laws if they prohibit abortion without exception for the life or health of the pregnant woman, he still asserts.
She criticized Joe Biden’s government for “persuading its own staff to compel hospitals and emergency physicians to perform abortions,” as did Ken Paxton, whose state now bans all abortions.
However, its laws make an exception to save the lives of pregnant women, and the complaint filed Thursday appears to be mostly political.
It’s part of a major legal ambiguity since the Supreme Court dismantled the right to abortion, which has been in force for nearly half a century in the United States.
His decision actually enabled the activation of many laws that had lain dormant for years, including those that are a century old, but whose provisions can be contradictory.
So far, dozens of states in the conservative South and Center ban abortions, and a handful of others limit them to the first six weeks of pregnancy. Ultimately, half of them should ban abortions on their soil.