What Does the New Texas Abortion Ban Do?

             The State of Texas and the United States Supreme Court may have taken America a long way to stopping abortion. This morning, the Supreme Court allowed a Texas state law to take effect. According to Alice Miranda Ollstein at Politico, the law “allows private citizens to sue to uphold a ban on the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy, potentially creating a new template for states to impose strict restrictions on the procedure.” She continued with the following: 

The court’s decision to not act on an emergency petition from Texas abortion clinics comes as the justices prepare to more broadly reconsider the right to an abortion it established almost 50 years ago. In May, justices agreed to review Mississippi’s ban on the procedure after 15 weeks of pregnancy – a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that legalized abortion nationwide. Those arguments are expected later this year, with a ruling in 2022….

Beyond outlawing abortion as early as six weeks into a pregnancy, the Texas law, signed in May, would deputize citizens to file civil suits against abortion providers or anyone who helps facilitate the procedure after six weeks, such as a person who drives a pregnant person to the clinic. Individuals found to have violated the law would have to pay $10,000 to the person who successfully brings such suit – a bounty abortion rights advocates warn will encourage harassment, intimidation and vigilantism.”

            Planned Parenthood President Alexis McGill Johnson claims that the non-action by the Supreme Court “is a de facto overturning of Roe before the Supreme Court has time to hear the Mississippi case.” She also said that Texas is taking America backward to 50 years ago to a pre-Roe state.

            The Texas abortion ban went into effect early this morning because the U.S. Supreme Court opted to not act on it. This activation of the abortion ban brought the following tweet from Live Action founder and President Lila Rose: 

It’s past midnight now in Texas. The Heartbeat Law has gone into effect. Every child with a detectable heartbeat is legally protected from being killed by abortion. Thinking of all the inestimably precious lives that will be spared today & their new lease on life.

An amazing day.

            I am grateful for the many people who are standing up to protect the lives of totally innocent unborn babies. Science, through the use of sonograms and other modern technology, tells us that the fetus is a human being and not just a blob of tissue. Unborn babies should be protected from the time of conception, but this Texas law is a good beginning.