The Texas abortion law, which the US Supreme Court recently refused to block, has created quite a furore, both due to the restrictive nature of the legislation and the court’s decision to let it pass.
The law has attracted criticism on many fronts — it bans termination of pregnancy after six weeks, a time limit when many women don’t even know they are pregnant; makes no exception for pregnancy caused due to rape or incest; and while it says abortions are banned once the foetus’s heartbeat can be detected, the cardiac activity detected on ultrasound by the sixth week is not a true heartbeat.
But apart from questions of endangering women’s health and autonomy, the law raises another concern – that of giving rise to vigilante scrutiny over medical procedures.
These fears have been expressed by no less than US President Joe Biden, who last week called the law “un-American” and said it encourages “a sort of vigilante system”.
The Texas Medical Association, in a strong statement criticising the law, has said, “SB 8 [Senate Bill 8] allows for a bounty that encourages practically any citizen to file a cause of action against physicians, other health care professionals, and anyone who ‘aids or abets,’ based on a suspicion. If permitted to proceed, this law will be precedent-setting and could normalise vigilante interference in the patient-physician relationship in other complex, controversial medical or ethical situations.”
