On Sept. 1, Texas officially became the state with the strictest abortion laws in the country. Women’s rights are being violated with the enforcement of this law, not only because it violates a woman’s right to her own body, but it allows the government and its civilians to police a woman’s body.

  LegiScan states that Texas Senate Bill 8 is, “relating to abortion, including abortions after detection of an unborn child’s heartbeat; authorizing a private civil right of action.”

   This not only prohibits women from having an abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected, but allows civilians to police abortions by suing an abortion provider or anyone who is suspected of aiding and abetting abortions, according to the Washington Post.

   The decision came after the Supreme court members did nothing to prevent the law from going into effect, which is another issue in itself. The job of the Supreme Court is to uphold the United States Constitution, and this decision proves a failure to do so.

  This law violates the Roe v. Wade decision and infringes on the rights of women who should have complete control over their own bodies.

  A Planned Parenthood article describes how The Roe v. Wade court case, which originally took place in Texas, guarantees women the Constitutional right to safe and legal abortions with no excessive government intervention.

  For a state as conservative as Texas, where individual freedom and government disinvolvement is encouraged concerning topics of guns, business regulation, and even COVID-19, this law certainly stomps on the women’s right to freedom.

   Why should people have the right to decide whether or not they wear a piece of cloth over their face to protect from a deadly virus that ensued a global pandemic, but not have the right to decide whether or not they are ready to bring a human into this world?

   Pro-life arguments stand mostly on the argument that abortion is the murder of a baby, and therefore creating laws to prevent access to abortion will save a life.

   However, a New York Times article writes that “Abortion providers in Texas estimate that 85 percent of patients seeking abortion are at least six weeks pregnant and would be denied care under the new state law.”

   Now that these women will be denied the right to safe medical abortions, they may seek other unsafe methods of terminating the pregnancy or even more so will end up giving birth to an unwanted child, which can further burden social systems such as foster care.

   Foster care reform organization, Children Right’s, describes the burden in 2019 when there were over 672,000 children in the foster care system. Forcing women to have babies could exponentially increase this number.

  These consequences prove that pro-lifers don’t actually care about human life. They care about having control over women’s choices.

 Moreover, the law makes no exceptions for cases of rape or incest, further proving a lack of sympathy and care from pro-life supporters.

   The law needs to be re-examined and questioned by every United States citizen, but most importantly by the Supreme Court.

  Our rights are being stripped away. This is a dig against not only women in Texas, but women in other states that will most likely follow a similar law to Texas. Because of this threat, we pro-choice supporters need to use our voices to empower our right to our own bodies.

  This law is not about protecting a six-week-old embryo, it is about barring women from accessing safe medical attention and gaining control over women’s right to choose what is right for their own bodies.