Doctors’ worst fears about the Texas abortion law are coming true
This NPR feature highlights the harm being caused by Texas’s extreme abortion ban, which has been in effect for six months. The law, S.B. 8, bans abortion at approximately six weeks of pregnancy and has been allowed by the U.S. Supreme Court to stay in effect.
Molly Duane, staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights and one of the attorneys on the Center’s case challenging the law, tells NPR that providers are “extremely and understandably fearful” of providing abortions even in medical emergencies because of the law’s design, which allows individuals to enforce it through civil suits. “A physician who made that determination in the moment would be doing so knowing that if someone second-guessed their judgment, [anyone] could file a lawsuit saying that you violated S.B. 8.,” Duane says.
The Texas Tribune also reported on S.B 8 and quoted the Center’s senior counsel, Marc Hearron, and the Center’s clients, Amy Hagstrom Miller and Dr. Alan Braid, on the case. Hearron stated, “The Supreme Court greenlit this law’s unprecedented vigilante scheme and essentially said that federal courts are powerless to stop it. There is no end in sight to this nightmare.”
Read the articles here:
- NPR: “Doctors’ worst fears about the Texas abortion law are coming true,” 03.01.22
- The Texas Tribune: Six months in, “no end in sight” for Texas’ new abortion law, 03.01.2022
Read about the Center’s case challenging the Texas abortion ban: Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson.
