AUSTIN (WBAP/KLIF)-The Texas House approved Senate Bill 8, the “Texas Heartbeat Bill” that would ban women from getting an abortion after a fetal heartbeat has been detected, while before Texas law allowed abortions as late as 20 weeks.
Jonathan Saenz President of Texas Values said the bill had bipartisan support in the Texas House and Senate and Governor Greg Abbott expressed his support to sign it into law.
“You hear many stories about people being born into difficult situations and have gone forward to do great things and I think people recognize the value of that life so I think this is something that people can unite behind,” said Saenz.
The bill has an exception for medical emergencies but not for rape or incest and would allow anyone in Texas to sue an abortion provider if they violated state law.
Pro-Choice advocates and faith leaders who opposed the bill say heartbeat detection can happen as early as four to six weeks after conception, often before pregnancy is known. Those same advocates also brought up that the language in the bill would give rapists the opportunity to sue the family members of his victim or the doctor if an abortion was provided after that time.
Saenz said the heartbeat is a key and universal medical predictor of whether human life exists.
“There’s been so much concern over safety and the loss of life with Covid-19, but there’s 50,000 abortions every year in the state of Texas so I think people are starting to think all life is precious, even in the womb,” he said.
The Texas Heartbeat bill rejects the Roe v. Wade decision by acknowledging that Pre-Roe state laws in Texas that ban abortions are still valid and enforceable. The Texas Penal Code of 1925 addressed abortion with statutes that prohibited and criminalized abortion. In, 1973, the same year as Roe v. Wade, the Legislature overhauled the Penal Code. Lots of statutes were repealed or moved, but the abortion statutes were never repealed. The Heartbeat bill references these states and acknowledges they could still be enforced.
The Texas Heartbeat bill relies on civil enforcement of the law by citizens, making it virtually impossible for a court to strike down the law as “unconstitutional.” In order for there to be a constitutional violation (such as a so-called “right to an abortion”), the government has to be the one enforcing such a law and taking such right away from a person.
The Texas Heartbeat bill is different than heartbeat laws in other state that have been struck down, as it allows any person the ability to sue abortion providers for violating this law.
Since 2013 Arkansas, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, and mostly recently Idaho and Oklahoma, have all passed heartbeat bills in their state legislatures.
