S.B. 8, the most restrictive abortion law in the United States, has gone into effect in Texas as of September 1st and, no doubt, Governor Abbott and “pro-life” citizens throughout the United States count this a huge win for saving lives. 

Under the new law, an abortion must occur before 6 weeks gestation to be lawful, a time frame determined by the detection of electrical activity within the womb by an ultrasound that effectively translates that electrical activity into what is generally referred to as a heartbeat even though the fetal heart is not fully developed at that stage. 

A six week abortion ban does not allow for the fact that most women do not suspect they are pregnant until at least 4 weeks gestation when they may have missed a period leaving them little time to schedule a procedure. Lawmakers also ignore the fact that many women do not have regular menstrual cycles or may have breakthrough bleeding in the first weeks of pregnancy so would not know they are pregnant until much later.

The six week time limit does not account for the lives of women with chronic illnesses or injuries that can make pregnancy dangerous, for the health of mothers when a pregnancy is not viable or develops into a life threatening situation as pregnancy progresses, and makes no exception for instances of incest or rape. 

When asked why the S.B.8 made no exceptions for rape or incest, Governor Abbott defended the law insisting that it does not force women to give birth because they have six weeks to terminate the pregnancy. He also claimed that Texas, a state where 90% of sexual assault cases go unreported (University of Texas Institute on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, 2015) in a country where only 2.5% of such cases lead to arrests (U.S. Justice Department, 2020), would eliminate all rapists from the streets. 

Adding to the difficulty of obtaining a safe abortion, many Texas abortion clinics have closed in recent years due to increasingly restrictive laws that require waiting periods and multiple appointments. These closures force patients to travel further distances to clinics that are having to take on a greater number of patients making it even more difficult to schedule procedures. Opponents of S.B 8 also point out that laws disallowing the use of Medicaid for abortions and having to travel further or out of state for the procedure puts a dispropotionate burden on poor women thereby perpetuating cycles of poverty.

Pro-choice advocates continue to question the motives of a pro-life movement that stands against sex education, birth control, and affordable healthcare when such measures have contributed to lower abortion rates in recent years. One study, the Contraceptive Choice Project (2010), saw abortion rates fall by as high as 78% when birth control was given to participants free of charge. 

It remains to be seen whether a law that makes safe abortion nearly impossible actually saves lives or ends up destroying them.