A Texas abortionist has admitted that he has already broken the state’s new law banning the procedures after a fetal heartbeat is detected.
Alan Braid, an obstetrician-gynecologist at Alamo Womens Reproductive Services in San Antonio, wrote an essay that was published in the Washington Post admitting to performing an abortion past the legal limit in the state.
He said that he deliberately violated the law so that he can challenge it in court.
In his op-ed, Braid explained that he has been performing abortions for the last 45 years, writing “when the Supreme Court issued its ruling in Roe v. Wade in 1973, recognizing abortion as a constitutional right, it enabled me to do the job I was trained to do.”
“Then, this month, everything changed. A new Texas law, known as S.B. 8, virtually banned any abortion beyond about the sixth week of pregnancy. It shut down about 80 percent of the abortion services we provide. Anyone who suspects I have violated the new law can sue me for at least $10,000. They could also sue anybody who helps a person obtain an abortion past the new limit, including, apparently, the driver who brings a patient to my clinic,” Braid wrote. “For me, it is 1972 all over again.”
Braid wrote that on the morning of September 6 he performed an abortion on a woman who was beyond the state’s limit — five days after the new law went into effect.
Under the law, anyone can sue an abortionist or anyone who aids and abets a woman getting an abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected. They cannot sue the woman, however.
“I fully understood that there could be legal consequences — but I wanted to make sure that Texas didn’t get away with its bid to prevent this blatantly unconstitutional law from being tested,” he wrote.
Until the new law was passed, his clinic was performing abortions up to 22 weeks. It is possible for a baby delivered at this age to survive outside the womb.
The abortionist is so committed to terminating pregnancies, he explained, that his clinic has been referring patients out of state and offering to assist with funding if they are too far along to have the procedure under Texas law.
