WASHINGTON (CN) — The House Judiciary Committee brought abortion providers to Capitol Hill on Thursday to detail the toll on constitutional rights in Texas during the two-plus months since the state enacted what are the strictest obstacles to abortion in the country.
"Sixty-five days — that's how long women in Texas have been stripped of their constitutional right," Committee Chair Jerry Nadler, a Democrat from New York, said, referring to the law known as Senate Bill 8, which ban abortions at the point of detection of fetal cardiac activity.
In contrast to abortion restrictions that rely on viability analyses — in other words, only banning abortions when it is determined that the fetus could survive outside the womb, usually at about 23 or 24 weeks in utero — a fetus's heartbeat can be detected at roughly six weeks, long before a woman learns she is pregnant. Texas furthermore makes no exception for instances of incest or rape in its so-called Heartbeat Act.
Nadler slammed the law's six-week time frame for disregarding Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which established the viability analysis.
"They are not just controlling women's bodies, they are controlling their lives," Nadler said, noting that other restrictions in Texas already require multiple medical appointments and a sonogram before an abortion.
Dr. Ghazaleh Moayedi, a board member of the Texas Equal Access Fund who is a practicing obstetrician and gynecologist, testified Thursday that the new law has "decimated" abortion access in Texas.
"We are working tirelessly to get people out of state,” Dr. Moayedi said. "But it is a nightmare. I never thought that medical care would come to this."
The doctor said abortion clinics in nearby states are grappling with weekslong waiting lists, creating an even deeper burden for people who lack the time or money to travel out of state to end their pregnancies.
In a bid to shield the law from legal review, SB 8 deputizes private citizens to carry out enforcement by suing abortion providers and anyone who "aids and abets" violation of the law. Moayedi said many Texas practitioners are terrified by that prospect and are changing the health care they provide out of fear of legal repercussions.
"We know chronic conditions can worsen in pregnancy but not worsen enough to warrant an exception under this law," Moayedi said. "Right now, today, physicians in hospitals in Texas are delaying life-saving care for critically ill pregnant people because their pregnancies still have fetal cardiac activity."
The Supreme Court put SB 8's enforcement mechanism under the spot light earlier this week when it heard oral arguments on dueling challenges against the law by abortion providers and the U.S. Department of Justice. Though anti-abortion crusaders had hinged on the newly 6-3 Republican court handing them victory, they found resistance Monday from some of the court's most conservative stalwarts.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh in particular noted concern that private enforcement of restrictive laws could be used to violate other constitutionally protected rights.
Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, a Democrat from Texas, said the law's encouragement for private citizens to police the behavior of people seeking or providing an abortion poses risks to personal safety.
“Not since the fugitive slave law have we had this kind of bounty hunting going on," Jackson Lee said.
While many conservatives on the committee praised the Texas law, their remarks tellingly honed in on late-term abortions, procedures practiced after 22 weeks, and descriptions of abortion as "killing."
“Every single life is precious and worthy of protection. That is what the Texas law is about," said Ohio Representative Jim Jordan, the Republican ranking member.
Representative Michelle Fishbach, a Republican from Minnesota, held up a model of a 10-week-old fetus, four weeks older than the embryos regulated by the Texas law, saying that the Texas ban "is saving lives."
Another complaint for Republicans on the committee was that the body should hold its tongue while Supreme Court review is underway.
Jordan described the meeting as "a way to pressure the Supreme Court and try to intimidate the Supreme Court."
"They are here to play politics with our institutions and advance a radical leftist agenda," Jordan said.
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