Texas State Representative Donna Howard on Senate Bill 8

January of 2022 marked the 49th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court case that legalized abortion in the United States. With many anti-choice politicians and judges in high-profile roles today, some have wondered if this anniversary might be Roe’s last.

In the past year, two pieces of anti-abortion legislation have made their way to the Supreme Court. The Court most recently heard from the last remaining abortion clinic in Mississippi, where restrictions are so tight clinics are being legislated out of existence. Equally controversial was Texas’ Senate Bill 8 (SB8), a “heartbeat bill” that bans abortions after about six weeks and allows individuals to sue anyone who aids in an abortion. In late 2021, the Court decided not to block the law, worrying reproductive rights advocates.

Texas State Representative Donna Howard has watched the political tides shift firsthand. Howard, a Democrat, has committed to protecting Roe v. Wade and testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee about the repercussions of SB8. In an interview with the FBomb, she shared why SB8 passed, the reaction in Texas, and what’s next for abortion rights.

What kind of comments and questions did you hear from your constituents when SB8 or what would become SB first came across your desk?

It came about in the time of COVID when we had restrictions on access to the capital. That further complicated the situation in terms of fewer people showing up to voice their opposition. The chair of the committee to hear the abortion bills made decisions that limited the ability of people to come and testify. She limited the amount of time during which she was going to hear testimony, and she limited the number of participants and asked groups to basically designate a person to testify on behalf of a larger number of people. So multiple things happened that I think are important to keep in mind here that stifled some voices.

And what do you think was different about this bill compared to all the other similar types of bills you’ve seen?

Well, in trying to do some negotiations with my Republican colleagues on this and other pieces of legislation, it was clear that Senate Bill 8, the so-called heartbeat bill, was their number one goal to accomplish. What was different about this particular session in Texas anyway was that it was the session after a campaign cycle where there was an expectation that Democrats were going to fare much, much better. There was a lot of money pumped into the campaigns. A lot of my Republican colleagues took this seriously and spent money and had to work hard to win. The outcome was no change whatsoever in the numbers on the House floor, and it seemed to be taken by some of my Republican colleagues as a strong message that, “We have now gotten a mandate to do whatever we want. You’re not going to be able to stop us, and so rather than being more judicious in the legislation that we’ve had before, we’re going to just push through whatever we want to. And this is our number one goal — the fetal heartbeat bill. We think this is going to the Supreme Court, and that’s what we want to see happen. All bets are off.”

When the bill was first introduced, was its potential to impact abortion access nationwide clear to you?

The private cause of action, which was basically allowing any individual, anywhere, to sue, whether they have cause or not, took it out of the judicial system and basically bypassed the judicial system. That was the most chilling part of the bill, and it was very clear to those of us working on it that that was going to have huge implications for the inability of the courts to put any kind of a stay or injunction on this so that there would be an immediate implementation of this lack of access. So yes, it was very clear to us that that was what was going on here. We tried to negotiate. The other side saw this as their ace, if you will, and a new way of doing this that was going to take [abortion restrictions] to another level. And there was no negotiating room at all for that because they wanted to clearly see that this was taking them where they wanted to go, which was to make sure that eventually there was no legal access to abortion in the state of Texas and also the rest of the country eventually.

What would you say to people who feel helpless in the face of this mobilization against reproductive rights? What can they do to help?

If it’s true, as it seems to be, that the majority of Texans and the majority of Americans favor legal access to abortion, those opinions need to be made loud and clear at the ballot box. We have to make sure that those running for office know that that’s where we as a people are coming from and what we expect. Quite frankly, the state legislatures are where the action is on this. And we’ve seen all the copycat legislation that’s come about after what Texas did, and we are going to see more and more of that. People have to make sure that the candidates know that they support access to legal abortion and that they want candidates who will support that.