The Wide-Reaching Impact of SB8

by Abby Cohen

Last fall, America’s most restrictive abortion law, known as Senate Bill 8 or SB 8, went into effect in Texas. Over the past six months there have been nation-wide protests, people seeking abortions out of state, and the Supreme Court hearing two cases, one of them challenging the law. With the Supreme Court having a 6–3 conservative majority, the stakes for Roe v. Wade couldn’t be higher.

SB 8 prohibits most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, only making an exception for medical emergencies which do not specifically include rape, sexual abuse, incest, or the fetus having an untreatable and fatal condition. The law doesn’t define what would constitute a “medical emergency” during pregnancy, a gray area that can result in a wide variety of interpretations and ways it is enforced.

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