The law prohibiting abortion after six weeks of pregnancy questions women’s federal rights

The United States is caught in a raging debate over human rights violations after its Supreme Court backed an unprecedented Texan law that prohibits medical abortion after the first six weeks of pregnancy. The law came into force on September 1. Democrats and liberals say they are stunned that their Supreme Court would support a law that assaults women’s reproductive rights. The issue has snowballed into a controversy with four Supreme Court justices, including the Chief Justice, dissenting against the 5-4 verdict. Texas is a Republican stronghold and pushed the law through. In a State where the majority of abortions generally happen after the six-week mark, the new law gives a woman barely over a week to detect her pregnancy, consult family and get the abortion done. Doctors admit it is difficult for a woman to know she is pregnant in the time the law allows her. The law is being flayed also because it denies a woman the right to abort even when she is pregnant because of rape or incest. The Republicans have been dismissive saying, with a straight face at that, that they will rid Texas of rapists. The law has determined that the foetus gains a heartbeat at the sixth week of pregnancy. Doctors say the heartbeat sound is created by the cardiac valves which do not exist at six weeks of gestation. However, the most controversial part of the law is that it empowers any private citizen to drag a doctor to court for an abortion after the sixth week and impose a hefty fine. The law explicitly refuses to consider the woman’s consent as moot.

The Texas law stands out as a glaring example of where the conservative American society is going with laws concerning women. For close to 50 years, American law protected a woman’s federal constitutional right to have an abortion during the first stage of pregnancy. The law also provided that nobody has the authority to regulate such abortion. The Texas law dismisses both laws summarily. What is surprising is that the Supreme Court did not address the constitutionality of the State law before supporting it. The petitioners did raise the matter, but the court said they did not meet the burden to prove their point. It is also without precedent of the apex court deciding such a crucial case without full briefing or argument and after less than 72 hours of thought. That is what the dissenting justices said. The first inadequacy is the apex court backing such a law. The ruling amounts to protecting the Texas law from judicial review until the Supreme Court takes up another petition challenging the law. Secondly, the Supreme Court has to look into the prospect of the Texas law turning ordinary citizens into bounty hunters and making pregnant women subjects of illegal surveillance and possibly, stalking. Is Texas outsourcing the implementation of a questionable law to its citizens? Who but the Supreme Court can protect women’s choice on birth or abortion?