In what could signal the effective unraveling of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that nullified dozens of state anti-abortion laws, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the Texas fetal heartbeat bill to go into effect.
“This is an historic moment in the fight to protect women and children from abortion,” said Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser. “We’re excited to see the Heartbeat Act save lives starting today and stand with our allies on the front lines serving mothers and families. The American people are eager to humanize our extreme, outdated abortion laws. This law reflects the scientific reality that unborn children are human beings, with beating hearts by six weeks.”
Abortion providers denounced the action by the Court.
“Texas’s SB8 violates Texan’s rights but the Supreme Court has let it go into effect,” Planned Parenthood said on Twitter. “We aren’t backing down and are still fighting. Everyone deserves access to abortion.”
Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the country, vowed that they would not back down and they would keep their clinics open.
A fetal heartbeat can be detected consistently at eight weeks of gestation,
President Joe Biden vowed to fight to maintain abortion access across the country.
Biden said in a statement that the law, Texas SB8, will “significantly impair women’s access to the health care they need, particularly for communities of color and individuals with low incomes.”
The president vowed to use his Justice Department to try to block the legislation.
There is still a pending federal case challenging the pro-life law, but by the Supreme Court not acting to give the plaintiffs injunctive relief it is allowing Texas to enforce the new law.
Alabama is one of the most pro-life states in the country. If the Supreme Court ultimately allows Texas to prevail in this case, the state of Alabama and many red states will follow.
The people of Alabama recently voted overwhelmingly in favor of a state constitutional amendment to ban abortions if Roe v. Wade is ultimately overturned,
Matt Clark president of the Alabama Center for Law and Liberty thinks that may be sooner than one might expect.
Clark wrote an article for the Regent University Law Review arguing that we have six justices who would be willing to discard Roe if a party would ask them to do so and present a good case.
The ACLL and the State of Mississippi are both asking the Court to overturn Roe v. Wade in another case that is pending before the court involving Mississippi,
Parenthood President and CEO Alexis McGill Johnson said: “We will continue to fight in the courts for abortion rights and access.”
