Texas' repugnant abortion law is pure Republican hypocrisy
(CNN)The cry of "Freedom!" echoes across the land, rising from places like Texas, controlled by Republican officials who are using every tool at their disposal to ban mask mandates or vaccine requirements. It's curious, then, that as of Wednesday morning, the women of Texas are essentially banned from choosing to get an abortion.
The same politicians who declare that mask requirements are an intolerable intrusion by government into sacrosanct individual freedom, have just imposed the country's most restrictive abortion law since the Supreme Court made abortion legal in the landmark 1973 decision, Roe v. Wade.
The Texas law, SB8, went into effect because the US Supreme Court and a federal appeals court refused to stop it, even though it stands in clear violation of the current law. Until now, the courts had allowed some restrictions, generally banning late-term abortions, those happening beyond the stage where a fetus is viable, about 24 weeks in.
Texas's law does two things differently -- deviously.
First, it bans abortions after only six weeks of pregnancy. Six weeks into gestation, few women know they are pregnant. At six weeks, a woman is late for just one period. Professionals say 85% to 90% of abortions occur after that point. Some women may seek abortions earlier, perhaps after a rape or incest. The draconian Texas law, unlike most other laws that restrict abortion, also makes it illegal for women to terminate a pregnancy that came as the result of rape or incest. The only exception is for "medical emergencies."
The second repugnant aspect of the Texas law is its system of enforcement, redolent of the methods used by the secret police in fascist regimes. Just like, for example, East Germany's Stasi turned neighbor against neighbor, making spies of its citizens and creating criminals out of everyday people, this law relies on snitching and on turning perfectly normal behavior into punishable offenses.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/01/opinions/texas-abortion-law-contradictions-ghits/index.html
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