By Devon Rocke, Co-Managing Editor
If your legislators found a loophole in the Constitution to pass a law that damages the lives of innocent people, would you want them to exploit it? Of course not. But that is exactly what Texas government officials did to pass the Texas Abortion Law.
The radical ban bars abortions for those who are pregnant as a result of rape and incest, and only narrowly permits abortions for the mother’s health. Those who are found to have gotten an abortion or have assisted in performing an abortion can be sued by private citizens. With all of these measures in place, around 85% of all abortions statewide have been cancelled.
Once a fetal heartbeat can be detected, it’s illegal to receive or perform an abortion. However, fetal heartbeats can be found six weeks into the pregnancy, before most people are even aware they are pregnant.
According to The New York Times, a fetal heartbeat “results from electrical activity, but the valves of the heart have not yet formed.” What this means is that though a heartbeat may be detected, it isn’t always indicative of a true heartbeat that you and I have.
What legislators are negligent of, is that introducing such an extreme law against abortions will not stop them. Many parents will find alternative methods of aborting their pregnancy, most of which are dangerous and risk their own lives.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has found through historical and contemporary data that “where abortion is illegal or highly restricted, women resort to unsafe means to end an unwanted pregnancy, including self-inflicted abdominal and bodily trauma, ingestion of dangerous chemicals, self-medication with a variety of drugs, and reliance on unqualified abortion providers.”
Since the law indicates that only private citizens can charge people and not the government itself, the ban is technically Constitutional and has been cleared by the Supreme Court. The key term being technically. Had the Texas government gone a step further and vied for governmental persecution, the law would be a direct violation of Roe v. Wade, a turning point in the fight for women’s rights that allows women to choose to have an abortion without governmental interference.
To exacerbate the situation, Mississippi is following in Texas’ footsteps, proposing an abortion ban after 15 weeks of pregnancy, and other states are considering implementing harsher laws as well. Should Texas’s surrounding states put laws into place similar to that of the Texas Abortion Law, pregnant parents in need of abortions will have nowhere to go to get an abortion, trapped by a law that interferes with their bodily autonomy.
The Texas Abortion Law needs to go before it further destroys the lives of its citizens. It should be each person’s choice to do what they think is best for their mental and physical health, not the government’s.
Devon Rocke can be reached at [email protected].
