Abortion Rights Activists Plan Challenge to Texas Measure
In a major victory for the anti-abortion movement, the Texas state senate passed a sweeping bill early Saturday that has become a flashpoint in the national abortion debate. Gov. Rick Perry is expected to sign it in short order.
But the fight is not over. Abortion rights supporters say that the new law attempts to overturn Roe v Wade in Texas, and that’s why they plan to take their fight to the courts.
“What this does is completely reshape the abortion landscape in the state,” says Elizabeth Nash, who follows state issues at the Guttmacher Instititute, an abortion rights research group. “With this legislation, Texas will become one of the most restrictive states in the country. And Texas really matters.”
First, Texas is the second most populous state in the nation, with four major cities and five and a half million women of reproductive age. It also has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the nation.
And symbolically, Texas was home to Jane Roe…whose fight for a legal abortion went all the way to the Supreme Court, which decided in 1973 that abortion is a woman’s fundamental right under the Constitution.
More: Abortion Rights Activists Plan Challnge to Texas Measure : NPR