In June 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, a landmark case that protected the constitutional right to abortion. The ruling caused each state to gain the power to determine abortion laws in the area.
Since the vote, at least 25 states have passed laws to ban or restrict access to abortions, with some of the strictest laws being passed in Texas for those who perform abortions.
In 2021, Texas legislators passed a heartbeat bill that bans the performance of an abortion once a heartbeat is detected. Texas law states it is illegal to perform an abortion including by mailing abortion pills. The law doesn’t apply to those who receive an abortion.
Yet posts on social media are misleading on the state’s abortion laws after a Texas court case concluded with attorney Mason Herring being sentenced to 180 days in jail and 10 years on probation for drugging his wife to try to induce an abortion.
After a case went viral, posts on social media began sharing misleading claims that abortions are completely illegal in Texas and that women who receive one will face life in prison.
While the misleading posts exaggerate the penalties in Texas law, they do highlight a troubling inconsistency in how the state treats those who seek or provide abortions versus those who attempt to force them.
Other posts on social media shared the misleading claim that the women in Texas who get abortions face the death penalty.
But, as previously explained, Texas abortion law doesn’t generally apply to the one receiving an abortion.
Under Texas law, an abortion is not considered illegal if it is to “save the life or preserve the health of an unborn child; remove a dead, unborn child whose death was caused by spontaneous abortion; or to remove an ectopic pregnancy.”
The law states that it may not “authorize the initiation of a cause of action against or the prosecution of a woman on whom an abortion is performed or induced or attempted to be performed or induced.”
In 2023, state legislators passed a bill to protect doctors, pharmacists and pharmacies who perform abortions for ectopic pregnancies or pre-viable premature membrane rupture.
In Dec. 2023, the Texas Supreme Court ruled that only against allowing an abortion, after a Texas woman asked the court to allow her to receive an abortion after discovering her unborn baby had a life-threatening condition. The woman in this case went out of state to receive an abortion before the ruling was given.
Although the courts ruled against the woman being allowed to have an abortion in the state, because a doctor didn’t confirm with the court that the unborn baby had a life-threatening condition, in the ruling the court said a “woman who meets the medical-necessity exception need not seek a court order to obtain an abortion.”
During a podcast by WAMU NPR titled 1A, Elizabeth Sepper, a law healthcare professor at the University of Texas, said that state exemptions don’t charge a pregnant person for receiving an abortion under the state ban, but that the exemption category is “narrow” and poorly written.
“No. The current law doesn’t. I think it’s a quite misleading statement from the Texas Supreme Court. Because really the outcome was we’re not going to think you’re right. This is a very narrow exception. And to give a sense of the ambiguity, it says that abortions can be performed where there is a life threatening physical condition that places the female at risk of death,” Sepper said.
The ambiguity of the law creates a situation where women experiencing pregnancy complications may be denied vital care due to fear of prosecution.
“Or poses a serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function. But it’s said life threatening in the first clause. And so it’s really actually not even clear whether this is a health exception at all--whether there are health threats that fall into the exception. Or if we’re just dealing with life threats,” Sepper added. “Which would be a narrow category still. It’s extremely poorly written, and it really can’t be understood in--in plain English.”
Although there is no current law in effect to punish those who receive an abortion, state lawmakers have attempted to pass such legislation in the past and some say the consequence for women is having to suffer through life-threatening dangerous health complications.
It’s also worth noting that in March 2021, Rep. Bryan Slaton of the Texas House of Representatives introduced a bill to criminalize abortion, making it a homicide punishable by death. The bill did not pass, though Slaton has claimed he will sponsor the bill again in future legislative sessions.
Brea Jones is a strategic leader and award-winning journalist who writes for the Sanford Herald. Previously, she worked to stop the spread of misinformation surrounding health and politics as a reporter with FactCheck.org at the University of Pennsylvania. Since 2015, Brea has written articles and produced multimedia for publications covering people, entertainment, politics, and health.