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Photo: Florida State University Photography Services.
The recently enacted Texas Heartbeat Act, also known as Senate Bill 8, gives conservative lawmakers everything they wanted - the ability to ban abortion with none of the risk, says Professor Mary Ziegler.
The key was not to criminalise abortions, Ziegler says, but to authorise private citizens to file lawsuits against anyone who performs or knowingly ‘aid and abets’ an abortion after the sixth week of pregnancy. If plaintiffs succeed they will receive a minimum of US$10,000.
With the first lawsuits now being filed against a San Antonio doctor, the Heartbeat Act is about to be tested. Meanwhile, a Republican lawmaker is proposing a similar act for the state of Florida.
Mary Ziegler is a professor at Florida State University College of Law, specialising in the legal history of reproduction, family, sexuality, and the constitution. She is the author of multiple books on abortion law, her most recent is Abortion and the Law in America: A Legal History, published by Cambridge University Press in 2020.