SENATE BILL 8
by Emily Blake
I was going to start this article by saying I can’t believe I even have to write this article in the first place. But, if the last year or so has taught me anything, it’s that ignorant men in power can and will do anything they can to restrict the bodily autonomy of women and people who can be pregnant, especially Women of Color and pregnant people of lower socioeconomic status than the lawmakers who are dictating their access to abortion. These lawmakers, the Greg Abbotts of the world, simply do not care if the “my body, my choice” rhetoric they utilize as anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers carries any similar weight in discussions of choice.
I guess what I more so “can’t believe” is the fact the Supreme Court of the United States essentially overturned Roe v. Wade quietly in the night. There have been limitations to equitable abortion access for decades— including but not limited to waiting periods, closing down of clinics, conservative doctors and therapists dissuading women’s right to choose, etc— but this Texas law’s inclusion of a bounty for reporting abortion providers, the 6 week cutoff, and the lack of exception for rape or incest are details that completely shattered the lowest low I thought abortion access could reach.
The severity of Senate Bill 8 and the fact it places a bounty on the head of anyone involved with someone receiving an abortion reminded Gloria Steinem of a pre-Roe decision world where doctors who provided abortion faced criminal consequences. Now, Texas citizens are actually financially incentivized to report abortions.
I’m heartbroken writing this article. I am forcing myself to write this to circulate some resources regarding how to get involved because this law is not going to make the need for abortion decrease. It is going to make receiving an abortion more dangerous. It is going to make receiving an abortion more financially inaccessible. It is going to make receiving an abortion completely not an option for thousands of women in Texas who should have every right to decide what they want to do with their bodies, their families, their lives. Senate Bill 8 has human consequences. Senate Bill 8 confirms that Texas Governor Greg Abbott only cares about “making decisions about your own body” when it comes to him and his constituents having the right to life, liberty, and spreading COVID-19. 24 hours after Senate Bill 8 was upheld by the Supreme Court, Texas passes a law that allows citizens to carry guns without any permit or training. The complete disregard of the rights of women, the right to feel safe and protected by their own government, and Greg Abbott’s utter carelessness in enforcing laws (both in regards to the legal precedent of Roe v Wade and beyond) is evident.
The Supreme Court decided 5-4 to refuse blocking the Texas law that bans all abortions, with no exceptions, when heart activity can be detected, something that typically happens at about the sixth week during a pregnancy. Some of the most advanced pregnancy tests available to women detect pregnancy at 5-6 weeks at the absolute earliest. Not only will pregnant individuals across Texas be forced to carry out unwanted pregnancies, but this SCOTUS ruling completely leaves up for grabs everything we thought was Constitutionally ensured by preceding case law. Roe v Wade was decided based on the argument that the Constitution of the United States casts a penumbra of a Right to Privacy. This right is something Republicans and Greg Abbott-sympathizers everywhere love. They talk about this Constitutional right when it comes to guns, when it comes to denying the COVID-19 vaccine, when it comes to hate speech— the list goes on and on. SCOTUS allowing Senate Bill 8 to exist is devastating on a multi-faceted level that exposes hypocrisy on an almost unimaginable scale. We are living in a moment where we are scared of contracting a virus everyday we leave our houses because people refuse to mask up and take an FDA-approved vaccine due to “their rights.” As of yesterday, the rug is pulled out from under every American who is now forced to ask themselves, in 2021, does bodily autonomy only exist for people without uteruses? If five decades of legal precedent can be obliterated due to conservative Supreme Court Justices who serve for life, what else is up for grabs?
You can find a list of abortion funds here.
If you have any more abortion funds or resources, please DM them to @wednesdayzine on Instagram, and we will both post them and amend this article to include them.