On Sept. 1, a new law in Texas, S.B. 8, took effect, banning abortion statewide after fetal heartbeat detection. The Supreme Court voted 5-4 shortly after S.B. 8 came to fruition to uphold the new law, much to the dismay of pro-abortion lawmakers and advocacy groups. Despite the new legislation prohibiting abortions after the six-week threshold, an abortion doctor in Texas openly admitted to violating S.B. 8 and is inviting challenges against it.
In an op-ed published by The Washington Post on Saturday, a Texas-based OB/GYN and abortion provider, Dr. Alan Braid, publicly revealed he violated state law by providing an abortion procedure for a woman past the six-week threshold after S.B. 8 took effect.
"[O]n the morning of Sept. 6, I provided an abortion to a woman who, though still in her first trimester, was beyond the state's new limit. I acted because I had a duty of care to this patient, as I do for all patients, and because she has a fundamental right to receive this care," Braid said in his article. "I fully understood that there could be legal consequences – but I wanted to make sure that Texas didn't get away with its bid to prevent this blatantly unconstitutional law from being tested."
Braid provided background on how he got to this point, stating that he had been taught in medical school at the University of Texas that "abortion was an integral part of women's health care" and that Roe v. Wade "enabled me to do the job I was trained to do." Braid began his obstetrics and gynecology residency in the summer of 1972, one year before Roe took effect. He notes that for the next 45 years, he delivered over 10,000 babies – and opened abortion clinics in Houston, San Antonio, and one in Oklahoma.
"I understand that by providing an abortion beyond the new legal limit, I am taking a personal risk, but it's something I believe in strongly," Braid states in the article. He notes that he is represented by the Center for Reproductive Rights and his clinics are among the plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit against S.B. 8. "I can't just sit back and watch us return to 1972," he concludes.
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Announced today, the United States Supreme Court will hear arguments for the impending case Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, beginning Dec. 1. Dobbs, which debates the constitutionality of a Mississippi law banning abortions at 15 weeks, could upend the precedents set by Roe and reinforced by Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992.
"The march of progress has left Roe and Casey behind," Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch wrote in a brief for Dobbs in July. "Those cases maintained that an unwanted pregnancy could doom women to 'a distressful life and future,' that abortion is a needed complement to contraception, and that viability marked a sensible point for when state interests in unborn life become compelling. Factual developments undercut those assessments. Today, adoption is accessible and on a wide scale women attain both professional success and a rich family life, contraceptives are more available and effective, and scientific advances show that an unborn child has taken on the human form and features months before viability. States should be able to act on those developments. But Roe and Casey shackle States to a view of the facts that is decades out of date."
