FORT WORTH, Texas — It was a day Bradley Pierce had prayed for.
On Friday morning, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade case — officially repealing the federal right to abortion and handing control to individual states.
Pierce, the president of Abolish Abortion Texas, was joyous when he heard the news. Pierce’s group had submitted a brief in the Supreme Court case — Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization — something Pierce said he was “privileged” to do.
Now, Pierce said, he will be asking God to forgive the country for the past 49 years of abortion access.
But while anti-abortion advocates celebrated, abortion rights advocates denounced the Supreme Court decision.
Kamyon Conner, executive director of the Dallas-based Texas Equal Access Fund, wrote in a statement that the court “has destroyed the last shreds of our national right to abortion, without concern for our dignity and basic human rights.” Conner accused the court of “bowing down to the whims of white supremacists and extremists.”
Texas is one of 13 states with a “trigger law” that will ban abortion.
The legal procedure in Texas is murky — before Roe became federal precedent, Texas had an abortion ban in place. That law, while invalidated by the federal precedent, was never actually removed from the books. But in 2021, as legislators prepared for the potential overturning of federal abortion access, Texas also passed a trigger law. That law, which would ban abortions in nearly all cases, would take effect 30 days after the Supreme Court decision.
Under that law, people who receive abortions could not be charged with a crime, but people who facilitate abortions could be charged with a felony and given a prison sentence up to life. Conner, the Texas Equal Access Fund executive director, said in a statement that this law will especially place people of color at further risk of a “racist criminal justice system.”
While the next phase of abortion access is a bit unclear, at the latest, Texas’ new and stricter abortion ban will go into effect on July 24. The state’s trigger law does not include exceptions for pregnancies that are the result of rape or incest; and, while it includes a provision that allows abortion when the pregnant person’s life is in danger, the Star-Telegram has previously reported that the language is vague and open to interpretation.
As Texas has restricted abortion access in the past year — the state in 2021 enacted a ban on abortions beyond six weeks of pregnancy — physicians and health advocates have warned that restricted abortion access will negatively impact women’s health and put pregnant people’s lives in danger.
The Texas Medical Association said in a Friday statement that it was committed to protecting privacy between doctors and their patients. It wrote the government or other third parties shouldn’t intrude on those relationships or criminalize medical practices that jeopardize patient safety, they wrote.
“Especially in high-risk situations, patients need to know their physicians will be there to care for them, and TMA will continue to work with state lawmakers to ensure a safe practice environment for physicians and their patients,” they wrote.
For Bishop Michael Olson of the Diocese of Fort Worth, Friday’s court decision was a sign of increased safety for the unborn.
“Human beings are only as safe as the most vulnerable member of our society,” he wrote in a statement. “If unborn babies are not protected by law and safe from harm, then it follows any injury to any person can be falsely justified by law and society.”
The diocese will be doubling its efforts to reach expectant mothers with its 91 parishes and anti-abortion activists to promote care and support.
Olson also wrote that the diocese’s work isn’t done yet. The diocese will continue to promote behavior and policy that supports family life anchored in marriage between a man and a woman, Olson wrote.
Pierce, the president of Abolish Abortion Texas, also referenced ongoing efforts to expand laws to protect fetuses.
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