Lawyer Monthly - January 2022 Edition

Senate Bill 8, or “SB 8”, was signed into law by Texas Governor Greg Abbott on 19 May. The self-dubbed “Heartbeat Act” barred abortions once cardiac activity has been detected within an embryo, which typically occurs within the sixth week of pregnancy – sooner than many women realise that they are pregnant. The bill also made no exceptions for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest. While similar restrictions have appeared in proposed anti- abortion legislation before, what commanded greater media attention was SB 8’s unusual empowerment of private citizens, rather than law enforcement, to sue any individual who performs or “aids and abets” an abortion outside of the six-week limit, recovering their legal fees and a minimum of $10,000 from the defendant should they succeed. By removing the involvement of state officials from the bill, this stipulation has restricted the legal recourse of abortion providers who would ordinarily have sued the state to keep such a law from taking effect. The law, which came into effect on 1 September, garnered widespread praise and condemnation respectively from anti-abortion and pro-choice camps in a firestorm that gained international attention. Particular outrage has been generated by SB 8’s alleged violation of the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution, which guarantees a “right to privacy” that has long been interpreted as protecting a pregnant woman’s liberty to choose whether or not to have an abortion. Groups such as Planned Parenthood have vowed to keep fighting the law, with US Attorney General Merrick Garland and other parties taking legal action against the state. The latest development in this story came on 10 December, as the Supreme Court declined again to block SB 8 but ruled that Texas abortion providers could challenge the law in a lower court. With further challenges to Roe v Wade set to be heard by the Supreme Court in 2022, it is anybody’s guess how abortion rights may soon be shaped in the US. WWW.LAWYER-MONTHLY.COM 13 Texas Senate Bill 8