Biden after annulment of the right to abortion

“It is a sad day for the court and for the country, with this decision, the United States goes back 150 years,” Biden said in a statement at the White House after hearing the Supreme Court ruling on Friday, June 24.

The US president assured that the Supreme Court has “criminalized abortion” and repeatedly referred to the interruption of pregnancy as a right that should be guaranteed to all women.

Under the idea that each state will now define its own laws regarding the interruption of pregnancy, Biden affirmed that “women cannot be prevented from traveling to access abortion.”

And it is that after the announcement, at least 13 states declared themselves to declare, in advance, laws that will prohibit abortion statewide.

“We know that at least half of the states want to restrict the right to abortion in their territories and at least 12 states would seek to restrict it completely,” Catalina Martínez Coral, regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean at the Human Rights Center, told France 24. reproductive.

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The right to abortion, at the center of the political struggle

Joe Biden made two invitations to the American people: the first, so that any legitimate demonstration in favor or against the decision is peaceful and does not generate disturbances; the second, urging citizens to actively vote for Democratic senators and congressmen in the mid-term elections to try to balance the balance in the legislation around abortion.

“This fall, Roe is on the ballot. Personal freedoms are on the ballot,” the US president said.

One of the reactions that was not long in coming was that of the former president Barack Obama (2009 – 2017), who on his Twitter account referred to the long history of struggle that American women they have suffered to obtain the rights that today the court revoked.

“Today, the Supreme Court has not only overturned nearly 50 years of precedent, it has relegated the most intensely personal decision anyone can make to the whims of politicians and ideologues, attacking the essential freedoms of millions of Americans,” the former president wrote in their social networks.

For its part, the president of the US Congress, Nancy Pelosy, criticized the ruling, assured that the fault lies with the Republican majority in the supreme court and announced that Congress and the Senate are working on a bill “to guarantee access to abortion throughout the country.”

“Today, the Republican-controlled Supreme Court has achieved the GOP’s dark and extreme goal of taking away women’s right to make their own reproductive health decisions,” Pelosi said, adding that “GOP extremists even they threaten to criminalize contraception, as well as in vitro fertilization and post-miscarriage care.”

“It is the will of God”

Former President Donald Trump (2017-2021) described the annulment of the right to abortion as “God’s will”assured that the judicial entity followed the Constitution with its sentence and that it is related to the history and principles of the United States.

And it is that Trump managed to introduce three openly Republican judges on the Supreme Court who are considered by human rights groups and political analysts to be extremely conservative leaders.

Judges who today turned the balance towards conservative interests and who left the vote 6 to 3 in favor of annulling the interruption of pregnancy as a federal right.

“Donald Trump undermined democracy not only by appointing three judges who go against rights, but also by institutionalizing human rights that are basic to women’s health are not taken into accountwhich makes invisible the latent need in a country that claims to be completely free”, added Catalina Martínez Coral, lawyer for Causa Justa, in an interview with France 24.

“It is time to abide by the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the elected representatives of citizens,” reads the ruling written by the ultra-conservative judge Samuel Alito, who led from the outset the draft that was leaked by the American media in May. Political ‘, which already anticipated what this Friday has materialized.

Mitchel McConnel, leader of the Republican minority in the US Senate for the Republican Party, assured that the sentence is a “historic victory for the Constitution and for the most vulnerable in society.”

More reactions to the sentence

The United Nations, human rights organizations, former presidents of the United States and leaders of several countries have spoken out about the historic decision of the American legal system.

“The Supreme Court ruling is a major setback for women’s rights and gender equality,” the UN Human Rights office said.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the news “horrible” and took the opportunity to send a message to Canadian women.

“No government, politician or man should be telling a woman what she can and cannot do with her body. I want women in Canada to know that we will always defend their right to choose.”

Another of the international leaders who spoke about the decision of the US court was French President Emmanuel Macron, who focused his message on women who feel questioned and violated by the sentence. She made her statement in French and English and assured that “the right to abortion must be protected.”

With Reuters, AP and local media