A Texas doctor has been sued by two former lawyers for violating the state’s very strict abortion laws. The cases are primarily intended to test the law.
In the new Texas abortion law, which has been in effect since the beginning of this month, after about six weeks, only under very strict conditions abortion possible.
The law also states that people who support an illegal abortion 10.000 dollar have to pay to whoever turns them in and wins the lawsuit.
‘We are back in 1972’
Alan Braid, a physician who works in the city of San Antonio, wrote on Saturday in a column The Washington Post reported that he deliberately disobeyed the law in an abortion on Sept. 6 by a woman who was still in her first term of pregnancy, but whose abortion was illegal under the new law. According to Braid, the woman had “a fundamental right to receive this care”.
The doctor wrote in his column to “completely understand” the possible consequences of his action.
According to him, the new law makes 80 percent of the abortions he normally performed no longer possible. “And that brings us back to 1972,” Braid said of the year he started working as a newly graduated physician, when abortions were virtually banned. He saw teenagers die from illegal abortions in those years.
Checks against constitution
On Monday, former attorneys in Arkansas and Illinois were found to have indicted Braid. The Arkansas lawyer said he was not categorically against abortion. With his case, he mainly wanted clarity about the law for “all nervous doctors” who fear bankruptcy after an abortion, he told the AP news agency.
The other lawyer asked the court in his indictment to declare the law unconstitutional. He believes that the government is crossing a border with the law.
Texas’ largest anti-abortion group, Texas Right to Life, has criticized both the charges and Braid’s column. They suspect that the column was intended to stir up such matters.
President Biden previously called the Texas law “bizarre and extreme”. He promised that his federal government would look into ways to give Texas women access to safe and legal abortions. The government has now a lawsuit started against Texas to test the law against the US Constitution.
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