These are dangerous times to be a woman in America. This past Monday, the Supreme Court heard nearly three hours of argument challenging Texas’ six-week abortion ban, Senate Bill 8. The law is not only extreme, it is deliberately engineered to evade constitutional scrutiny. By removing enforcement from the state and placing it in the hands of private citizens, Texas has created a vigilante system that invites individuals to police women’s bodies for profit.
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| Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash |
Under this law, a rideshare driver who takes a woman to a clinic can be sued. A friend who offers support can be sued. A medical provider can be sued. Anyone who is perceived as helping a woman exercise control over her own body faces a minimum penalty of ten thousand dollars plus attorney’s fees. This is not about protecting life. It is about punishment, fear, and control.
SB 8 is disturbingly clever. By stripping state and local governments of enforcement authority, Texas has attempted to prevent federal courts from stopping the law before it causes harm. By outsourcing enforcement to private citizens, it has confused the judiciary while women’s rights are dismantled in real time. Nearly fifty years after Roe v. Wade, Texas has succeeded in placing women’s constitutional protections in serious jeopardy.
Although the Court has not yet ruled on the arguments it heard, the consequences are already clear. SB 8 is not merely an attack on abortion. It is an attack on bodily autonomy, personal liberty, and the constitutional separation of church and state. This is about individual rights. All of them.
When we talk about abortion, we must be honest about its opposition. So-called Pro-Life ideology is rooted in religious belief, not medical science. Science has long established fetal viability at approximately twenty-four weeks. Even with modern medical advances, survival before that point is exceedingly rare. A heartbeat may be emotionally charged, but it is not a measure of viability. Pretending otherwise is a political strategy, not a scientific truth.
I say this with a heavy heart. I do not know whether I would have chosen abortion had I become pregnant. I never wanted children, a decision I made deliberately in my early thirties, and even earlier I approached parenthood with deep hesitation. Still, I cannot say with certainty what choice I would have made if faced with that reality. And that uncertainty is precisely the point.
Pro-Choice does not mean Pro-Abortion. It means trusting individuals to weigh their beliefs, their faith, their health, and the science, and to make the decision that is right for their own bodies. A woman’s life, health, and autonomy must always outweigh an unviable fetus. Religion must never be allowed to dictate the law of the land.
When religion dictates public policy, the First Amendment is violated. The Constitution protects the right to practice any religion or no religion at all. Respecting religious freedom also means refusing to impose religious doctrine on others. When one group tramples the rights of another in the name of belief, it places everyone’s freedoms at risk.
Those who have experienced their rights being questioned, minimized, or dismissed know how quickly silence becomes complicity. We must stand together as feminists. We must be as relentless, principled, and unapologetic as Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Today it is women. Tomorrow, who will it be?
The question is not whether rights will be taken, but when more rights will be taken away as we remain silent and watch the rights of one minority group stripped from them.
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