If you’re a woman living in Texas, you just lost a whole lot of rights granted to you by the Supreme Court in 1973, just by waking up this morning. Today, September 1, 2021 the “Heartbeat Law” signed by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has gone into effect, despite being wildly unconstitutional. It is the nation’s most restrictive abortion law, banning abortion after 6 weeks of pregnancy. 

This law blatantly violates the constitutional right established under Roe v. Wade, upheld as precedent for nearly half a century. And if you know anything about the United States’s legal system, Constitutional law takes precedence over all Appellate law. The Texas law also violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court needs to take action now. 

In Section 91 of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court States that the argument of when life begins is not an argument valid enough to restrict abortion, “We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.” Again in section 93, “the law has been reluctant to endorse any theory that life, as we recognize it, begins before life birth or to accord legal rights to the unborn except in narrowly defined situations and except when the rights are contingent upon life birth.” Further, “the fetus, at most, represents only the potentiality of life.” not life itself. Regarding the Due Process Clause, in section 118: “Several decisions of this Court make clear that freedom of personal choice in matters of marriage and family life is one of the liberties protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.”

Not to mention, six weeks is before most women even know they're pregnant. The bill also states that it allows civil action to be taken against the medical practitioner who aids or preforms the abortion. This could force doctors and nurses to turn people in need away in fear of legal action. The Heartbeat Bill is unjust, unconstitutional, and takes away the rights of every single woman in the state of Texas. This law only makes abortion more dangerous and fatal. This bill actually puts more lives at risk. Banning abortions does not stop them from happening. It just means a lot more women are going to die from unsafe abortions.

It is also important to note that no one is pro-abortion. We are pro-choice. And the freedom of personal choice in maters of family life, and body, are protected by Roe v. Wade, the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and almost fifty years of precedent.