Texas governor signs heartbeat abortion bill

The Lone Star State has new protections for the unborn, but the government won’t be enforcing them. Instead, the bill that Gov. Greg Abbott signed on Wednesday allows anyone to sue doctors or others who help a woman get an abortion for up to $10,000 per abortion in damages, plus attorney and legal fees.

Which babies are now protected? The law’s protections mirror legislation in more than a dozen states that make a detectable heartbeat the cutoff for legal abortion. An ultrasound can pick up a developing baby’s pulse as early as six weeks. The law is scheduled to take effect in September, but most similar protections are tied up in courts. They will likely remain that way until the Supreme Court rules on a Mississippi law that protects babies after 15 weeks of pregnancy. That probably won’t happen until spring of next year.

Dig deeper: Read Leah Hickman’s report in Vitals about the South Carolina heartbeat bill’s journey toward becoming a law.