How unprecedented Texas abortion law is in the scope of history

The Supreme Court allowing Texas' new abortion law to be enacted is an unprecedented moment for modern abortion law in America.

The Supreme Court issuing an unsigned order refusing to block a Texas abortion ban while it faces a legal challenge stunned many and marked a significant moment in the United States' history of reproductive rights. The playbook for years by anti-abortion legislators was to slowly chip away at the right to an abortion via mechanisms like "targeted restrictions on abortion providers" or "TRAP" laws, while outright pre-viability bans were seen as unrealistic. "This was really bad and really unexpected," Robin Marty, operations director at the West Alabama Women's Center and author of "New Handbook for a Post-Roe America," told ABC News. "We thought it would be slower and not nearly as, 'all right, we're done, rights are gone.'" The Texas law bans physicians from providing abortions "if the physician detects a fetal heartbeat," including embryonic cardiac activity, which can be as early as six weeks into a pregnancy. Before Wednesday, no law was in effect that banned abortions earlier than 20 weeks of pregnancy. Many states had tried to enact early gestational bans, but they had all been blocked by courts.