Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed legislation that will ban abortions after six weeks into pregnancy, before many women know they’re pregnant, opening the door to legal challenges from private citizens against abortion providers they accuse of violating the law.
“Our creator endowed us with the right to life, and yet millions of children lose their right to life every year because of abortion,” Abbott said Wednesday. “In Texas, we work to save those lives. That’s exactly what the Texas Legislature did this session.”
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The signing of the bill comes as states propose a record number of restrictions on abortion access, emboldened by the conservative majority on the Supreme Court cemented by former President Donald Trump. Forty-seven states have introduced more than 540 abortion restrictions combined since January of this year, including 146 abortion bans. Of those total restrictions, 69 have been enacted so far, according to abortion-rights advocacy group the Guttmacher Institute.
Several states that have passed similar bills to outlaw abortions early in pregnancy, such as Mississippi and Kentucky, have seen the legislation blocked by the courts before going into effect. The new Texas law, however, clears the state of the responsibility to enforce the law. Instead, it grants private citizens the power to launch civil suits against providers or people who paid for the procedures and would impose a fine of $10,000 for each abortion performed or facilitated.
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“[The legislators] worked together on a bipartisan basis to pass a bill … that ensures that the life of every unborn child who has a heartbeat will be saved from the ravages of abortion,” Abbott said.
The law goes into effect in September and does not make exceptions for cases of rape or incest.
The passage of the bill comes just after the Supreme Court announced on Monday that it would hear a case concerning Mississippi’s ban on abortions after 15 weeks gestation, a move that revived hope among Republicans that the court will reconsider the ruling in the 1973 Roe v. Wade case, which legalized abortion nationwide.
