Texas has an extremely restrictive new abortion law. What do I need to know?
Besides banning abortion past six weeks, the law allows individuals to sue those they think are “aiding and abetting” abortion access.
We’re back from our summer vacation, so welcome to the 44th issue of The Supplement, a newsletter that fills in the gaps of your other news intake. This is Alex, one-third of The Supplement team!
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This week, we’re tackling this question: Texas has an extremely restrictive new abortion law. What do I need to know?
TL;DR: The US’s most restrictive abortion law took effect in Texas on September 1. The US Supreme Court has refused to block it so far, despite the law violating the protections created by Roe v. Wade. Besides banning abortion at six weeks, the law also allows individuals to sue those they think are “aiding and abetting” abortion access. For Canadians, while abortion rights are less under threat at home, there are still numerous barriers to actually accessing them.
Texas has put in place the US’s most restrictive abortion law.
Yesterday, the six-week abortion ban took effect in Texas amid inaction from the US Supreme Court. Around midnight, the Supreme Court — dominated by conservative justices — refused to block it in a 5-4 vote.
Under this law, pregnant people are banned from accessing abortion after six weeks, which is often too early for many to even realize that they are pregnant in the first place. The metric they’re using here is that any pregnancy in which a heartbeat is detected cannot be aborted. (For reference, pregnancy tests usually instruct people to wait until at least the first day after missing their period or at least 1-2 weeks after sex for the most accurate result. And once they do realize, people might also need time to arrange travel plans — especially in many areas where there are few providers available — and/or collect enough money to pay for the health service.)
Besides curtailing access, the law also allows any individuals to sue those they think are “aiding and abetting” abortion, and they could receive $10,000 if the lawsuit is successful. Without an individual Texas official that pro-choice activists could take to court, this makes the law difficult to legally challenge.
Pregnancies resulting from rape or incest are not exempted.
Texas’s law directly attacks Roe V. Wade, a 1973 US Supreme Court decision that protects the right to access abortion before fetal viability, which is between 22 and 24 weeks.
"The court's order is stunning," Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her dissenting opinion.
"[A] majority of Justices have opted to bury their heads in the sand. … The court should not be so content to ignore its constitutional obligations to protect not only the rights of women, but also the sanctity of its precedents and of the rule of law.”
This is not the end, because other challenges can still be brought to the Supreme Court. But activists fear a wave of other conservative states pushing through similar laws will come first — and there have already been almost 600 anti-abortion legislations introduced across the US in 2021 alone.
In many areas, it doesn’t take changing the law to stop access to abortion. For instance, there was only one abortion clinic left in some states as of 2019, forcing pregnant people to travel extensively to access care.
As many have long pointed out, the harms of restricting abortion access disproportionately fall on low-income and racialized communities. And instead of reducing the numbers of abortions, these actions often lead to unsafe abortions instead.
(For more context: Texas has close to 30 million people, which is almost the population of Canada. Around 50,000 abortions were performed in the state annually.)
In Canada, abortion rights are under less of a threat.
But there are still numerous barriers, such as limited options for those living outside of urban centres. As abortion is left to the provinces and territories, it is often a “patchwork” for accessing the service. For example, Ottawa has held back federal funding for New Brunswick after the province declined to fund abortion procedures at Clinic 554, and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association launched a lawsuit against the province over the matter in January 2021.
And amid this federal election, check out this article for a quick look at what the major parties are promising on abortion access.
Here’s someone to follow:
If you want to read more about public health and drug policy — such as where the federal parties stand on the overdose crisis — please immediately follow Moira Wyton, The Tyee’s health reporter. I’m very biased here because Moira is a good friend who also wrote for The Ubyssey (UBC’s student newspaper, #togetherforever), but there’s no denying that she is always delivering great reporting!
Here’s a story to check out:
After an almost 20-year war that brought few lasting gains, the US has withdrawn from Afghanistan. For a quick review of the Taliban’s takeover, the West’s rescue airlifts, and ways to help with the ongoing humanitarian crisis, check out this explainer.
The Supplement will also be writing something more extensive on the situation in Afghanistan next week. Let us know if there are any aspects you’re interested in learning more about.