Texas Senate Bill 8, known as the “Texas Heartbeat Act,” allows private citizens in Texas to sue anyone who aids in an abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected. The law effectively outlaws the vast majority of abortions in Texas, but its supporters argue that it does not violate the precedent set by Roe v. Wade, because individuals, not the state, are enforcing the ban. The United States Supreme Court chose not to block the new law from going into effect, but, in a dissenting opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor called S.B. 8 “a flagrantly unconstitutional law engineered to prohibit women from exercising their constitutional rights and evade judicial scrutiny.” Margaret Talbot joins Dorothy Wickenden to discuss the Texas law and the ongoing effort to erode abortion rights.
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