Tomorrow, the Texas House will hear SB 8 and HB 1280—bills that effectively ban abortion in Texas.

#SB8 & #HB1280 are forced pregnancy bills, and they must be stopped. 1/ #txlege

SB 8 bans abortion around 6 weeks gestation. (Gestation is measured from the 1st day of a woman’s last menstrual period—so that’s actually 4 weeks pregnant.)

There is no beating heart at that point of pregnancy. Only cellular electrical flickers can be detected. 2/

At 4 weeks pregnancy (6 wks gestation), most people haven’t even begun to consider whether or not they are pregnant.

That means that at the time when most people go to the doctor to find out *if* they are pregnant, it will already be too late to consider an abortion under SB 8

SB 8 grants no exception in the case of rape or incest.

Not only does SB 8 force women to go through with a pregnancy regardless of their circumstances, it also imposes a civil cause of action on healthcare providers & anyone accused of “aiding & abetting” an abortion. 4/

SB 8 grants “any person” the right to sue for damages (whether damaged or not). The “damaged” party doesn’t actually have to show that they’ve suffered any damages, they can just sue and sue and sue... 5/

Here’s what that could mean for Texans:
A rapist could sue a doctor if they provide an abortion to the survivor of rape or incest
Someone who lives in Oklahoma (or anywhere in the US) could sue you if you so much as respond to a friend with the location of an abortion clinic

If you drop your sister off at a healthcare clinic—where she has an abortion—you could be sued, again, by anyone in the US
If you process the insurance paperwork for an abortion, you could be sued

Not only is SB 8 a violation of constitutional rights to abortion, it’s a disaster for our legal and medical systems.

This bill opens the door to frivolous lawsuits that will paralyze our medical systems and flood our courts. 8/

We may not agree on the issue of abortion, but we should all be able to agree that #SB8 invites out-of-state extremists to use our legal system to harass doctors and healthcare providers who are simply doing their job within the letter of the law. 9/

Most importantly, #SB8 and #HB1280 put Texans seeking important healthcare at a grave risk.

These bills are dangerous for our healthcare providers, for our friends, for our family, and for all of us. -TH