A federal appeals court has upheld a block on a Mississippi law that bans most abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected at around six weeks of pregnancy.
The U.S. Court of Appeals of the 5th Circuit ruled (pdf) on Thursday to affirm a lower court injunction that blocked the state law from going into effect. This comes after the same court ruled in December that the states 15-week ban, a separate abortion law, was “unconstitutional.”
Former Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant (R) signed the so-called “heartbeat bill” in March last year (pdf). The law makes it a crime to perform an abortion, except in a few circumstances, after a “fetal heartbeat has been detected,” which is generally at six weeks.
After the law was signed, the states only abortion clinic, Jackson Womens Health Organization, sued. The district court ruled in favor of the clinic in May last year.
The three-panel judge wrote in its opinion that the law is unconstitutional because it bans the procedure before a fetus is “viable”—that is, whether it can survive outside the womb. It added that since it had previously ruled that an abortion after 15 weeks was unconstitutional then the more restrictive 6-week ban is “also unconstitutional.”
In December, the same court said in the previous ruling that the states 15-week ban was unconstitutional because “prohibitions on pre-viability abortions … are unconstitutional regardless of the States interests because a State may not prohibit any woman from making the ultimate decision to terminate her pregnancy before viability,'” citing the Supreme Courts landmark decision on Roe v. Wade in 1973.
Several other states including Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Ohio have passed their own version of the “heartbeat bills.” Many of these bills have led to a series of legal challenges in courts. These states are hoping that the lawsuits could be a vehicle to challenge Roe v. Wade, which classifies the right to choose to have an abortion as “fundamental,” in the Supreme Court. Several courts across the country have already invalidated the “heartbeat bill,” such as in Mississippi.
The Supreme Court is preparing to hear a case regarding state laws that put restrictions on abortions. That case asks the court to decRead More – Source
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The Epoch Times
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