AUSTIN, Texas (CN) — A Texas fetal heartbeat law that has yet to take effect drew its first challenge Tuesday from a group of abortion providers who say it puts a bounty on them to be collected by anti-abortion crusaders.
Senate Bill 8, passed along party lines by Republican state lawmakers, will prohibit abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected, as early as six weeks, unless a medical emergency necessitates the procedure after that juncture. It makes no exceptions for pregnancies caused by rape or incest.
“Our creator endowed us with the right to life. And yet millions of children lose their right to life every year because of abortion. In Texas, we work to save those lives,” Republican Governor Greg Abbott said in a May 19 signing ceremony for the bill.
The U.S. Supreme Court established a constitutional right to abortion in its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, and over the last 48 years federal courts have struck down numerous state laws that tried to ban the procedure before viability, roughly six months into a pregnancy, when the fetus can survive outside the uterus.
But in a gambit to prevent SB 8 from being immediately struck down, its drafters took a novel approach: The government – state agencies, the attorney general, or any political subdivision – cannot enforce it.
Enforcement power is handed to private citizens who can sue abortion providers, or anyone who aids and abets an abortion, including an insurer for reimbursing the costs of one.





