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What SB8's Legalese Really Means

You'd think the 'masks take away my liberty!' people would be against state-mandated childbirth.

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Doctor Hands In Handcuffs

(Photo by Andrey Popov/Getty Images)

Texans are known for loving themselves and having the most threatening anti-litter campaign of… maybe all time. But it is also burgeoning as a trendsetter when it comes to functionally outlawing abortions — their SB8 bill has already inspired copycat legislation in Florida, Idaho, and likely more to come. Odd state to model behavior from, given that they recently ranked 8th in the nation for the highest teen pregnancy rates despite (or because?) of their abstinence-heavy curricula. And they’re treating teen pregnancies like Lay’s chips. I hope that the lawmakers in these states are paying attention to the consequences of laws like SB8 before they bring them home.

In a third-floor medical suite with sweeping views of a Texas highway, staff members at Houston Women’s Reproductive Services are adapting to the new demands the state’s restrictive abortion law has placed on their jobs.

They try to schedule every patient for a visit on the same day she calls, lest that patient lose a single valuable day of the narrow window for care. They linger on the phone with frantic women who are already terrified that they’ll be forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term, even though they are just a day or two late on their period. And they have pivoted, in many cases, to dispensing emotional and logistical support instead of medical care.

I am all for increasing access to addressing people’s emotional and mental needs in times of crisis, but this is not the time for the talking cure!

The clinicians are confronting novel reactions from patients, too. In addition to questions of spiraling desperation—how much time do I have? Why can’t you help me? Where do I go? How can I get there?—they are seeing an unprecedented outpouring of anguish. They have also noticed a troubling rise in feelings of regret.

I thought this would go without saying, but taking away people’s right to basic healthcare access is a bit stress-inducing. But at least Roe and its progeny set the threshold for viability at 24 weeks which, while not an infinite amount of time, gives some space to weigh the significant change-of-life trajectory that having a child can cause. SB8 sets viability at the first fetal heartbeat, which despite shortening the time from conception to viability to six weeks, would still afford some time for a calm and thorough decision to be made, right?

But that doesn’t mean patients have six weeks of pregnancy to obtain a legal abortion. They have, roughly, one.

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A week? It’s taken me at least four times that long to fold the laundry balled up on the chair of a room! One of the unfortunate realities of living in a country where many of the men legislating bodies don’t know how they work is that — due to sex ed. that focuses on scaring students rather than informing them — a bunch of young (?) adults don’t either. It’s ridiculous that the window you have to undo the effects of some frat bro stealthing you — which is finally being recognized as a form of sexual assault — isn’t even long enough to figure out how you’d afford the economic, physical, and mental burden of taking care of an unexpected kid. On top of that, scheduling on the 7th day is really the 12th hour once you factor in the laws that amplify SB8:

The timing is made even trickier by another Texas law that requires each patient to see the same doctor for two separate appointments, scheduled at least 24 hours apart, before terminating her pregnancy.

This is huge because the average person goes in around weeks 7 to 8 when their right to healthcare wasn’t stolen from them under the cover of darkness.

And speaking of money, am I the only one still in disbelief that SB8 incentivizes bounty hunting? You know that annoying neighbor who uses being saccharine to cover up how prying they actually are? Texas lawmakers decided to spit in the face of a boomer’s bunch of jurisprudence to give them a NARC license. And it’s not chump change, mind you — anyone in on the real estate market knows a few $10k a pop can get a lot popping in Texas. Inside scoop that I definitely just made up — if and when you report your 12th teenager burdened with an unwanted pregnancy because she put off the appointment to the 8th day, Gov. Abbot personally hands you a mocha frappe!

Few things are more terrifying than caffeinated nosy neighbors and teenagers undergoing existential anguish because the earliest their doctor could schedule a second visit wouldn’t be fast enough. Can’t really say I’d want that for my state.

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The Most Unexpected Consequence of the Texas Abortion Ban [Salon]

Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s.  He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.

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