Texas Abortion Restriction Is Temporarily Blocked

September 1, 2017

(New York Times) – The law — part of Senate Bill 8, passed this spring — would require doctors to stop the fetus’s heart before performing a dilation-and-evacuation abortion, in which the cervix is dilated and the fetus is removed in pieces. This would be done either by injecting chemicals or by cutting the umbilical cord. There would be an exception for life-threatening emergencies. Proponents of the new law say this would ensure the “humane termination” of the fetus. Opponents say it would require women seeking abortions to undergo medically unnecessary and untested procedures — and note that using the chemicals in question would violate another Texas law, which prohibits the off-label use of drugs to induce abortions.