What does this mean for Texans — for the people who seek abortion, for friends and family supporting them, and for health care providers? As law and policy scholars, we have looked at the current statutes and the history of enforcement to provide some idea of what may happen. Here are five things Texans should expect when abortion becomes banned.The first thing for Texans to understand is the slate of laws that will soon criminalize abortion with no exemption for rape or incest.
And once abortion becomes illegal, prosecutors can also use other criminal laws. For example, Texas’ homicide statute extends to causing the death of “an unborn child at every stage of gestation from fertilization until birth.” Legal abortions — including dispensing drugs that cause abortion — had been exempted from its reach.
Despite this, anti-abortion activists often downplay concerns about criminalization of women. And while it’s true that our state’s abortion-specific criminal laws expressly exempt pregnant people who have had an abortion, other laws could be invoked. Even before Dobbs, prosecutors brought criminal charges against women who had miscarriages or stillbirths. In other states, women have been accused of child endangerment or distribution of drugs to a minor. This year, an Oklahoma woman wasof manslaughter and sentenced to four years in prison after suffering a miscarriage at 15 to 17 weeks pregnant, well before fetal viability. Prosecutors argued the miscarriage stemmed from her use of methamphetamine.
Today too, criminal law will not stop people from getting abortions. 2022 is not 1972. Coat hangers will likely be a thing of the past. Today, people early in their pregnancy can safely self-manage their abortion by obtaining medication abortion pills online or from Mexico. And in the face of increasing abortion restrictions,
I doubt it very seriously.
I am pro life but I don’t think the people celebrating this decision realize the Pandora’s Box being opened. This now means states can mandate vaccines and the Supreme Court won’t do anything to stop it.
Including women who have difficult pregnancies and will be incarcerated to 'protect the fetus,' and women who suffer miscarriages who will be charged with murder with the burden of proof of innocence entirely on them, while family and friends are charged as accomplices.
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