The Department of Justice has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block the enforcement of Texas Senate Bill 8, also known as the Texas Heartbeat Act.
The Oct. 18 request comes as the legal battle over the law’s constitutional status continues.
Senate Bill 8 states that “a physician may not knowingly perform or induce an abortion on a pregnant woman unless the physician has determined … whether the woman’s unborn child has a detectable fetal heartbeat.”
UTRGV political science professor Andrew Smith, who is an expert in constitutional law, says
the act does make an exception for abortion when the woman’s life is in danger, but there are currently no exceptons for women who are victims of rape or incest.
Smith describes what makes this law is different from other laws that ban abortion.
“Texas’ way of skirting around Roe v. Wade is by taking a unique approach and that is to have private citizens in charge of enforcing law. Specifically, private citizens can sue anyone who has provided an outlawed abortion.”
Smith explained that the Justice Department is trying to get a district court injunction against the law reinstated.
“If an injunction is reinstated, that doesn’t mean that the law is necessarily, that’s not the final conclusion that the law is unconstitutional,” he said. “It just means that it can’t be enforced until federal courts determine whether this law, in fact, violates the Constitution.”
Civil engineering freshman Regina Nava said the Supreme Court should get involved.
“I think they should get as many people as they can to speak on it. … Because if it’s only one person, one man, that gets to choose over every woman’s body in Texas, I don’t think that’s correct or morally correct.”
This is Rodolfo Alvarado for Vaquero News.
