The U.S. Supreme Court has overturned the landmark 1973 case, Roe v. Wade. The court ruled in Roe that, “A person may choose to have an abortion until a fetus becomes viable, based on the right to privacy contained in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Viability means the ability to live outside the womb, which usually happens between 24 and 28 weeks after conception.” [1]
In anticipation of the overturn of Roe, approximately 25 red state legislatures have enacted or prepared law to ban or greatly restrict abortions, mostly at 15 weeks. Some state laws, such as Texas Heartbeat Act, S.B.8, effective 9/1/21, ban abortions “after detection of an unborn child’s heartbeat” generally at about six weeks. Per the Act, “Texas has compelling interests from the outset of a woman’s pregnancy on protecting the health of the woman and the life of the unborn child.” Among the Act’s enforcement mechanisms, S.B.8 deputizes private citizens to sue anyone who aids or abets the provision of an abortion with successful plaintiffs receiving a minimum of $10,000. The U.S. Supreme Court, with its new conservative slant, declined to intervene on Texas S.B.8. The Texas law will stand.