If we are to believe the reactionary lawmakers in Texas, that state’s recently promulgated six-week ban on abortions is designed to protect unborn babies and prevent bloodthirsty doctors from coercing vulnerable and emotional young women into depraved abortion procedures.
In reality, abortion bans, just like legislation targeting transgender athletes, have nothing to do with family values, equity, healthcare, or children’s well-being or safety. They are instead brazen and increasingly successful assaults on 230-plus years of constitutional refinement and decades of legal precedent with the goal of obliterating any connection this country might still have to Enlightenment secular humanism.
The law also makes use of the myriad tactics and ploys other states have used to interfere with what should be an apolitical medical decision. From requiring practitioners to offer sonogram imaging to touting pseudoscientific scare tactics such as a link between abortion and breast cancer, the law is a blatant attempt to satisfy a political niche and disrupt what has long been considered a standard medical service.
The deceptively named “Texas Heartbeat Act” is not designed to provide abortion alternatives or education but rather to redefine the relationship between women and their healthcare providers, placing extraordinary pressure on both parties to navigate an intentionally narrowed legal minefield.
These kinds of laws seek to give state officials the freedom to exercise control and wield power in direct opposition to the ‘small government’ ideals those same officials usually voice, especially when it comes to social welfare programs that might well have a greater impact on abortion rates than effectively criminalizing the procedure before pregnancy is even suspected.
