By: Zoe Shoul
The Texas Heartbeat Act came into effect on September 1, 2021. This law restricts women from getting an abortion beyond approximately 6 weeks of pregnancy.[1] To an untrained eye 6 weeks may seem like enough time. However, a woman with a regular cycle will only have one week to obtain a positive pregnancy test, schedule a doctor’s appointment, receive medical confirmation, and receive an abortion.[2] In fact, only about 13% of woman have a typical cycle, so most women have less than one week.[3]
This law disproportionately affects minority women. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2018, abortion rates were 3.4 times higher among non-Hispanic Black women and 1.7 times higher among Hispanic women as compared to non-Hispanic White women.[4] Structural racism is the root cause of high rates of unwanted pregnancy among minority women. Minority women have limited access to contraception and are less likely to use it.[5] Reasons for limited access include geographic and financial access. Large life events such as relationship changes, moving or personal crises can have a direct impact on medication continuation.[6] Such events are more common for low-income and minority women than for others.[7] Additionally, differences in women’s sexual education and lower access to medical care and family planning often hinder contraception use.[8]
Moreover, this Act makes no exceptions for women who become pregnant through rape or incest.[9] African American women 12 years and older experienced higher rates of rape and sexual assault than White, Asian, and Latina women from 1999 to 2010.[10] Therefore, a woman of color is more likely to have to carry a pregnancy that stemmed from sexual trauma.
Structural inequities also cause a delay in a woman’s ability to get an abortion. Women who live in poverty have major obstacles to overcome in a very short period. These obstacles include the cost of the procedure because Medicaid or other health insurance plans do not cover abortions and coordinating two different appointments, as mandated by law, around their job, school, and childcare.[11]
The harsh reality is, without access to legal abortions, some women will go to great lengths to end their pregnancies. This includes going to unauthorized facilities or turning to the internet for “DIY remedies.”[12] These actions put many women in danger of serious complications.
The only way to put an end to this injustice is through the legal system. Roe v. Wade protects a woman’s right to have an abortion without unwarranted government intrusion, yet we are seeing the complete opposite take place.[13] A Vietnam war veteran compared this law to the way women in Afghanistan are being treated. He wrote in the LA Times, “Who are we to judge the Taliban when governments in our own country can take control of a woman’s body? A world apart from Afghanistan, the United States must take a good look at itself and ask the hard question: Are we so different when it comes to how we treat women and girls?”[14] The Department of Justice has since sued the government of Texas. However, there is no finish line in sight. Thus, in this modern-day, women must continue to fight for basic body autonomy.
[1] Sarah McCammon, What The Texas Abortion Ban Does — And What It Means For Other States, NPR (September 1, 2021), https://www.npr.org/2021/09/01/1033202132/texas-abortion-ban-what-happens-next.
[2] Michelle Rodriguez, The Absurd Pregnancy Math behind the ‘Six-Week’ Abortion Ban, Scientific American (September 4, 2021), https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-absurd-pregnancy-math-behind-the-lsquo-six-week-rsquo-abortion-ban/.
[3] Whitney Akers, Forget the 28-Day Cycle. Women’s Fertility Is More Complicated, Healthline (September 29, 2019), https://www.healthline.com/health-news/forget-28-day-cycle-womens-fertility-is-complicated.
[4] Katherine Kortsmit et al., Abortion Surveillance — United States, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2020), https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/ss/ss6907a1.htm?s_cid=
[5] Meera Jagannathan, Texas abortion law will hurt people of color, those with low incomes and other marginalized groups, advocates say, MarketWatch (September 4, 2021), https://www.marketwatch.com/story/texas-abortion-ban-runs-along-race-and-income-lines-advocates-say-11630692463.
[6] Susan Cohen, Abortion and Women of Color: The Bigger Picture, 11 Guttmacher Inst. 2, 4 (2008).
[7] Id.
[8] Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health, Women of color need improved information and access to effective contraception, https://bixbycenter.ucsf.edu/news/women-color-need-improved-information-and-access-effective-contraception.
[9] McCammon, supra note 1.
[10] Michael Planty et al., Female Victims of Sexual Violence, 1994-2010, U.S. DOJ Bureau of Justice Statistics (2016), https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/fvsv9410.pdf.
[11] Jagannathan, supra note 4.
[12] Olga Khazan, Texas Women Are Inducing Their Own Abortions, The Atlantic (November 17, 2015) https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/11/texas-self-abort/416229/.
[13] See Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 169 (1973).
[14] Robert Graham, Letters to the Editor: With Texas’ abortion ban, who are Americans to judge the Taliban?, LA Times (September 1, 2021), https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-09-01/texas-abortion-ban-women-taliban.
