SCOTUS Ruling Allows Texas to Deputize Citizens as Anti-Abortion Police
Donald Trump’s installation of three radical right-wing “justices” on the Supreme Court is paying off for the forces trying to overturn Roe v. Wade. On September 1, in a 5-4 vote, the high court allowed the most restrictive anti-abortion law in the country to go into effect, in Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson. SB 8, known as the “Texas Heartbeat Act,” bans all abortions after physicians detect, or should have detected, a fetal heartbeat. That generally occurs at six weeks of pregnancy, when most women don’t even know they’re pregnant.
The split vote on the Court signals the likelihood that the “justices” — who were so quick to allow Texas’s Machiavellian law to take effect — will seize the opportunity next term to overturn Roe v. Wade when it considers the constitutionality of a Mississippi law banning abortion after 15 weeks. That would open the floodgates to similar legislation in other states preventing women from having abortions.
About 85 percent to 90 percent of Texas women who have abortions are at least six weeks into their pregnancy, which means the law will prohibit nearly all abortions in the state. There is no exception for rape or incest. Women in Texas will now have to travel to another state to secure an abortion or resort to life-threatening back alley coat-hanger abortions.
Read more Read On
