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A brand new Texas legislation banning most abortions went into impact final week. The legislation is notable for how restrictive it is, and for the way will probably be enforced. Texans are empowered to sue not solely abortion suppliers, but in addition anybody else who “aids and abets” somebody in acquiring an abortion.
At Occasions Opinion, we’ve printed a variety of responses to the legislation. Lauren Kelley, a member of the editorial board, warned that the Supreme Courtroom’s refusal final week to dam the legislation was one more signal that Roe v. Wade is prone to be overturned. Columnist Michelle Goldberg wrote about how the legislation is a part of a broader pattern of the Republican Social gathering encouraging vigilantism. Mary Tuma, a journalist in Texas, described the state’s lengthy historical past of hollowing out ladies’s well being care.
And in the present day, we’re publishing two essays with very completely different views on a deeper query raised by the laws: Which set of values ought to information our nation’s legal guidelines?
Linda Greenhouse, a contributing Opinion author, laments that Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas — and different politicians whose states have handed legal guidelines limiting abortion — invoked God as he voiced his assist for the legislation.
“Who let God into the legislative chamber?” she asks.
Karen Swallow Prior, a analysis professor at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, alternatively, praises the Texas law.
“The very best goal of human legislation is the safety of human life, from its starting to its pure finish,” she writes. “As a pro-life Christian, I consider that every of our particular person origins are within the second of conception.”
Although Prior writes that the Texas legislation is “removed from excellent,” she sees in it potential not simply to cut back the variety of abortions in Texas, but in addition to encourage individuals to assist ladies who’re contemplating having abortions.
“As historical past has proven many times, we typically want the legislation to show us to like,” she writes. “Generally it takes a legislation to remind us that fellow human beings aren’t ours to personal, hurt, or kill.”
I hope you’ll learn every of those essays and think about how they will help us perceive how this legislation got here to be, and the way it will have an effect on the lives of Texans — and others in America past the state’s borders — sooner or later. Taken collectively, they characterize a core a part of our mission at Opinion: to show readers to many various methods of eager about the necessary occasions of our time.
Eleanor Barkhorn is an editor at massive in Opinion. She beforehand labored as an editor at Vox and The Atlantic.
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