AG Garland’s message will likely echo far beyond Texas.
The Justice Department is exploring “all options” to challenge Texas’s restrictive new abortion law, Attorney General Merrick Garland said Monday. Here’s what you need to know:
Where does the department stand?
AG Garland said the Justice Dept. won’t tolerate any violence, obstruction, or property damage against people seeking to “obtain or provide reproductive health services.” The department has reached out to U.S. Attorneys’ offices and FBI field offices in Texas to “discuss our enforcement authorities.”
What’s the legal position?
Garland has referenced the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, a 1994 law that prohibits threats and obstruction of those seeking reproductive health services (or of service providers). He says the department will enforce the federal law “in order to protect the constitutional rights of women and other persons, including access to an abortion.”
And what about the “ripple effect”?
Garland’s message will likely echo far beyond Texas. But so will the new law. Within 24 hours of the harsh rule coming into effect, legislators in at least six other states showed interest in following suit. Abortion rights advocates warn that the threat to women’s reproductive freedom now extends much further.
If “personhood” bills — which typically mark fertilization as the beginning of human life, and propose legal protection from then onwards — gain momentum, they could affect access to contraceptives, or what happens to unused embryos in in-vitro fertilization procedures.
For more on the “serious repercussions,” this Texas law will impose on women, check out Katie’s must-see conversation with constitutional law professor Mary Ziegler and The 19th News reporter Chabeli Carrazana.
