“My Body My Choice” Thrown Out The Window
On Wednesday, September 1st, a new law in Texas went into effect, amounting to almost a complete ban on abortions. It bars abortion after six weeks, despite the constitutional right to the procedure established by the Supreme Court in 1973, making no exceptions for cases of rape or incest. This law allows private citizens to sue abortion providers and anyone who helps women obtain an abortion. ‘Help’ can include anyone who gives financial assistance to a woman trying to get an abortion or anyone who provides a woman with a ride to a clinic. The law blocks state officials from actually enforcing it and instead deputizes citizens, a design to make it difficult to challenge in court. The claimant may sue the patient or the clinic and receive at least $10,000 if they win. This law represents a significant shift in the battle over abortion and invites other states trying to tamp down access to abortion to follow suit.
The Texas Abortion Law, known as the Senate 8 Bill, is now the most restrictive in the country. Just before midnight on September 1st, the night before the bill went into effect, the Supreme Court refused to block the bill with a 5 to 4 vote. The question for the supreme court now is not whether the law is constitutional but rather if it can be challenged in court. Other states have tried to implement similar laws, but those laws have been challenged by abortion-rights groups fro being unconstitutional and blocked by federal courts again and again. This law is different because private citizens enforce it and pursue lawsuits against abortion providers or anyone else found to "aid or abet" abortions instead of public officials. If the federal courts ultimately allow this law to stand, it's very possible that other conservative states will move to pass similar laws. There is already speculation that Mississippi is trying to implement a 15-week abortion ban in a suit of Texas. Multiple court challenges are already underway, including several lawsuits in the Texas state court targeting anti-abortion-rights groups.
The 6-week marker is when a medical profession can begin to detect a heartbeat. Conversely, the cardiac activity detected after six weeks on ultrasound is not an actual heartbeat. It results from the electrical activity, but the valves of the heart have not yet formed. Therefore, the sound does not indicate the pregnancy is viable. Six weeks is also well before most women know they are pregnant. As doctors usually define it, she is around four weeks pregnant by the time a woman misses her period. This means a woman would have roughly two weeks to recognize and confirm the pregnancy, make a decision about how to manage the pregnancy and procure an abortion. Studies estimate that 85 percent of patients seeking an abortion in texas are at least six weeks pregnant and, therefore, would be denied care under the new state law.
Roe v. Wade allows abortion up until 24 weeks, around the time a fetus can survive outside of the womb. Texas’s new state law is 18 weeks prior to this. Unfortunately, for members of the pro-choice movement, it appears to be the beginning of the end, a signal that a Supreme Court stacked with conservative justices is prepared to eviscerate the constitutional right to abortion.
Someday soon, we will see Roe vs. Wade in courts once again.
