A Texas abortion law that critics have described as the most restrictive in the country is sparking controversy and a looming legal battle, just hours after taking effect on Wednesday.
Known as Senate Bill 8, the law bans abortions after doctors can detect a fetal heartbeat, which typically occurs around the sixth week of pregnancy. Critics say that restriction effectively outlaws abortion, as many women don’t realize they are pregnant before the six-week mark.
BIDEN SLAMS TEXAS SIX-WEEK ABORTION BAN: ‘BLATANTLY VIOLATES’ CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS
Similar restrictions in other states have not survived court challenges. In Georgia, for example, a federal judge last year struck down a six-week abortion ban that had, unlike the Texas law, made exceptions for rape and incest.
But proponents of the Texas law hope its unique structure will help it meet a different fate.
The law allows private citizens to bring lawsuits against abortion providers they suspect have violated the ban and imposes hefty civil penalties on anyone found to have aided an abortion later than six weeks.
“That’s one of the promises of Senate Bill 8, is that we no longer have to depend upon local district attorneys, who are usually politically motivated, to ignore our requests for enforcement,” John Seago, the legislative director at Texas Right to Life, told the Washington Examiner. “The pro-life movement now has the opportunity to enforce this law themselves.”
Abortion rights advocates say the enforcement mechanism in the Texas law circumvents the legal system by empowering the public to seek out and build cases around alleged violations.
Seago said abortion providers accused of breaking the law would enjoy the same protections they previously had if the law were enforced by the state of Texas.
“At the end of the day, there’s still a pretty high legal bar,” he said. “These legal definitions and norms and protocols in the judiciary are still going to be followed, and the weight and the onus is going to be on the pro-life movement to bring forth and prove a violation has occurred, if, in fact, the industry decides to ignore the law.”
Abortion rights advocates, including Planned Parenthood, filed an emergency petition to the Supreme Court to block the law before it took effect, to which justices did not respond before the midnight deadline.
Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University in Houston, said he ultimately expects courts to strike down the ban.
“The current law going in was 24 weeks. This would take it down to six, and therefore just under precedent with Roe v. Wade and [Planned Parenthood v.] Casey, I cannot see the Supreme Court eventually allowing this law to stand,” Jones told the Washington Examiner.
“What’s less clear to me is how the Supreme Court is going to approach it,” Jones added, “in terms of whether they’re going to quash it immediately … via an injunction and then eventually overturn it or if they’re going to require that actual cases be brought forth, in terms of suits, before they’re going to be willing to act.”
The battle over the Texas law comes as the Supreme Court prepares to consider a high-profile case involving an abortion restriction in Mississippi. That law banned the procedure after 15 weeks — and Jones said the case is a much more likely vehicle for revisiting the standards for restrictions that courts allow, which is typically after the point a fetus could survive outside the mother.
“I think there is a belief that we may see some erosion of the original 24-week protection,” Jones said. “Most people were looking more toward the Mississippi 15-week case as perhaps being the bridge the Supreme Court is willing to cross.”
If the high court were to uphold the Texas law, Jones noted, that would mark a far more significant departure from precedent than even a favorable ruling toward Mississippi, which would be in itself a landmark shift.
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What’s more, a ruling in favor of Texas from the 6-3 conservative majority could embolden Democratic activists who want to add justices to the bench; Jones cited polling that shows most people favor at least some abortion access.
An effective ban on the procedure, upheld by the Supreme Court, could turn public opinion toward supporting a solution that dilutes the conservative hold on the bench.
