The law places the most restrictions on abortion since the Supreme Court legalized abortion [nationwide]  in 1973.

The pro-abortion people wanted SCOTUS to step in because the law could stop 85% of the abortions in the state. Many clinics will have to close.

SCOTUS received the challenge to the bill on Monday, which “centered on the preliminary question of what rules should apply in Texas while abortion providers continue to challenge the ban in lower courts.”

SCOTUS has not answered.

The Law

The legislation states basic biology: “pregnancy begins with fertilization” and “occurs when the woman is carrying the developing human offspring.” The authors said pregnancy is also determined by the date of a female’s last period.

Also from the bill:

Sec. 171.202. LEGISLATIVE FINDINGS. The legislature finds, according to contemporary medical research, that:
(1) fetal heartbeat has become a key medical predictor that an unborn child will reach live birth;
(2) cardiac activity begins at a biologically identifiable moment in time, normally when the fetal heart is formed in the gestational sac;

The gestational sac is the “structure compromising the extraembryonic membranes that envelop the unborn child and that is typically visible by ultrasound after the fourth week of pregnancy.” It is not the placenta.

The law forbids a physician from knowingly performing or inducing “an abortion on a pregnant woman.”

The physician can perform or induce an abortion if “the physician has determined, in accordance with this section, whether the woman’s unborn child has a detectable fetal heartbeat.”

So the abortion can only happen in a medical emergency. Rape and incest do not count. The person who impregnated the woman “through rape or incest could not sue.”

The Texas Heartbeat Act allows private citizens to “bring a civil action against any person who”:

(1) performs or induces an abortion in violation of this chapter;
(2) knowingly engages in conduct that aids or abets the performance or inducement of an abortion, including paying for or reimbursing the costs of an abortion through insurance or otherwise, if the abortion is performed or induced in violation of this chapter, regardless of whether the person knew or should have known that the abortion would be performed or induced in violation of this chapter.

The person cannot “have a connection to an abortion provider or a person seeking an abortion.”

Pro-Abortion People Losing Their Minds

Those who approve of infanticide are going nuts on social media. The hyperbole is off the wall. People who supposedly “believe the science” about everything ignore basic biology.

[Editor's Note: Molly Jong-Fast is the daughter of Erica Mann Jong, author of, Fear of Flying.]

If you’re not in a rage about Texas Republicans overturning roe you’re not paying attention

— Molly Jong-Fast (@MollyJongFast) September 1, 2021

Nothing worse than walking my teenage daughter to school and explaining to her how Republicans used the shadow docket to overturn Roe in the state of Texas.

— Molly Jong-Fast (@MollyJongFast) September 1, 2021

Good morning. Texas is still the most dangerous state in which to give birth, and if it was a country it would have the highest maternal and infant mortality rates of any country in the global North.

— Melissa, Apocalyptist (@MelissaFloBix) September 1, 2021