On Sept. 1, 2021, a new law came into effect in the state of Texas. This law, aptly named Senate Bill 8 (S.B. 8), is made to effectively stop abortions in women who are over six weeks pregnant.

However, this law is unusual in the sense that it is not being enforced by the state, but rather by individual citizens. Instead of the offender being arrested and charged with a crime, any citizen can open up a civil case against someone who they
believe has broken this law. Cases cannot actually be opened against patients who have received an abortion, but they can be opened against anyone involved in helping the abortion take place, including doctors and even those who provide transportation to
someone seeking an abortion.

The law is also unconventional as it offers $10,000 to the plaintiffs who win the cases they open up. This money would be paid to them by the court, which is highly unusual. Typically when a plaintiff wins a civil case, the money paid to them for the
damage they’ve received comes out of the pocket of the defendant.

This is unlike any law against abortion that the United States has seen before, and the unique nature of it is thought to make it less likely to be struck down by the higher courts. Despite this effort to increase the law’s standing, it may still yet be
stricken down. However, that does not mean that others like it won’t appear again in Texas, or other states that have been trying to find ways around Roe v. Wade, like Missouri.

In order to gauge reactions to this new law, the Mirror asked different people around campus what their opinions were on S.B. 8. Sophomore Abigale Hallberg said, “My body is not a political ground.”

Others students thought differently, including political science major Dayton Doudican. “I don’t have a problem with the content of the law,” Doudican said. “I agree with the content, but I don’t think it was implemented well.”

Professor Katherine Gilbert, instructor of Women & Gender studies 101, had much to say when asked about her thoughts on the new law. “I think the law will cause a lot of suffering and harm,” she begins. “Most women don’t know they’re pregnant by six weeks. You have seven million women in Texas who are of reproductive age, so that’s seven million women who are possibly affected.”
She then goes on to state the potential outcomes of such a law.
“Potentially the law will cause women to die,” she says. “In particular, it causes women of economic struggle to really suffer. They will be forced against their will to give birth and have a child, and they are often the least economically stable in terms of being
able to travel out of the state for an abortion. So, they are really stuck. And then they have children they didn’t want to have and they have to take care of them, and that’s economically harder for them.”

She then goes on to discuss the civil aspect of the law.

“The other piece that I think is unusual with this law and frankly terrifying, is the vigilante element,” she said. “It’s also about a punishment that is almost like a vengeance that’s like something out of The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. It’s
not normal. We don’t have that kind of vigilante justice for other types of laws.”

Regardless of where people fall on the morality of abortion, it is undeniable that this law is unlike anything that has been seen before in the United States. It still awaits to be seen if this law will serve as a loophole for Roe v. Wade, or if it will eventually be
struck down.