News from the Lone Star State has seemed quiet, but this week, Republican Governor Greg Abbott came out with guns blazing, first declaring on Tuesday an executive order banning mask mandates, citing, as of Sunday, zero new COVID-19 cases in the state, which lifted all coronavirus restrictions in early March.
On Wednesday, the governor signed into law Senate bill 8, known as the “Texas Fetal Heartbeat” bill, prohibiting all abortions after the detection of a fetal heartbeat, which can be identified via ultrasound as early as six weeks into a pregnancy.
“Our creator endowed us with the right to life,” led off Abbott in a press conference earlier today, “and yet millions of children lose their right to life every year because of abortion. In Texas, we work to save those lives.”
According to the governor, the bipartisan bill passed by the Texas state legislature and signed into law on May 19 ensures that “every unborn child who has a heartbeat will be saved from the ravages of abortion.” Abbott praised Republican and Democrat lawmakers and pro-life groups for working tirelessly together to “stand for life,” to guarantee the passage of a bill that “cultivates a culture of life in Texas.”
In the state that laid the foundations of the 1973 landmark ruling Roe v. Wade, Texas joins Alabama, Georgia, Missouri, Louisiana, and a bevy of other Republican-led states with laws barring abortion after a heartbeat is detected, typically before a woman even knows she is pregnant.
The passage of the bill arrives in the wake of the Supreme Court announcement on Monday that the Court will hear a Mississippi abortion case in October challenging the ban of abortions after 15 weeks of a woman’s pregnancy.
That case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, while reportedly “not a direct challenge” to Roe, is nevertheless a threat to those committed to unrestricted abortion, reported The New American.
According to Center for Reproductive Rights President and CEO Nancy Northrup, “Alarm bells are ringing loudly about the threat to reproductive rights…. The Supreme Court just agreed to review an abortion ban that unquestionably violates nearly 50 years of Supreme Court precedent and is a test case to overturn Roe v. Wade.”
The judgement stands to threaten the status quo of abortion in America, especially if the Supreme Court conservative majority, including Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, rule according to the U.S. Constitution.
Under the new Texas legislation, citizens are authorized “to enforce the law by suing doctors or anyone who helps a woman get an abortion, including nurses, front desk staff, or even the person who drove the patient to the abortion appointment,” reported the Daily Mail.
Texas Right to Life member Bill Cherry told The New American, “This is a priority bill, similar to the one in Mississippi, and it is a challenge to Roe v. Wade. It’s all part of a strategy to challenge the Roe decision, and that’s going to happen now.”
Director of Media Communications for Texas Right to Life Kimberlyn Schwartz expressed her excitement about the signing of the bill: “This is a historic day in Texas,” Schwartz told The New American. “We have a direct opportunity to protect life now, but we need to remember there’s still two weeks left in the legislative session, so lawmakers have the opportunity to pass even more pro-life bills.”
Schwartz explained that the “two big bills we are hoping to pass are the Texas Abolition Strategy, which seeks to overturn Roe v. Wade and end all abortions through the courts, and the Respecting Texas Patients’ Right to Life Act, which would protect patients’ right to life, and end the current 10-day rule in hospitals, known as the Texas Advanced Directives Act, which permits hospitals to end a person’s life prematurely.”
While Democratic governors, such as Washington state’s Jay Inslee, are working to defund the police, setting their states on fire, Republican leaders, such as Greg Abbott, are protecting the rights of the unborn, watering and cultivating the fields in anticipation of a bountiful harvest.
