Following Arkansas' lead, today Texas Governor Greg Abbot (R, of course) signed a law that bans abortions after six weeks, and makes no exceptions for cases of incest or rape. The so-called "heartbeat ban" will not allow an abortion to be performed once a fetal heartbeat is detected.
The law will also allow Texans to "sue abortion providers or anyone who helped someone obtain an abortion after a fetal heartbeat was detected, even if the individual [who is suing] had no connection to the person who obtained the abortion," according to Business Insider. Why the Republicans still pretend to be the party for "personal freedoms" is beyond me.
From CNN:
Abbott's signature also comes on the heels of the Supreme Court on Monday agreeing to take up a key abortion case next term concerning a controversial Mississippi law that banned most abortions after 15 weeks, rekindling a potentially major challenge to Roe in front of the majority conservative court. The court's announcement is only expected to intensify the growing trend of state-level abortion restrictions coming out of Republican-controlled legislatures, according to activists on both sides of the issue.
Texas joins South Carolina, Oklahoma and Idaho in codifying bans this year on abortion at the onset of a fetal heartbeat. Also this year, Arkansas and Oklahoma have enacted near-total abortion bans, and Montana banned the procedure at 20 weeks. None of the bills have gone into effect, either because of court actions or later effective dates. Neither have any of the 10 gestational bans, which bar abortions past a certain point in pregnancy, that passed in 2019 and 2020. …
The bill "allows literally anyone, including non-Texas residents who maybe have zero connection to the person having an abortion, it allows them to use lawsuits to harass people who help people access abortion care after six weeks," Amanda Williams, executive director of the Lilith Fund, told CNN. "That would also obviously include us, as an abortion fund, who helps people access abortion care."
Image: Victoria Pickering / Flickr
