The Texas abortion ban is a performance of misogyny. But it might get worse | Moira Donegan

Unconstitutional anti-abortion laws are often a grim kind of misogynist political theater. But that might be changing

Senate Bill 8, the six-week abortion ban that the Texas governor, Greg Abbott, signed into law last week, is a total ban on abortion in everything but name. The bill is one of several across the country that bans abortions at six weeks of gestation - in layman's terms, four weeks after fertilization and two weeks after the first missed period.

Texas is the ninth state to pass such a bill, named by the anti-choice movement that lobbies for them as fetal heartbeat bills". The term is a misnomer, because at six weeks of gestation there is neither a fetus nor a heartbeat. Indeed, there is no heart. At six weeks, the pregnancy consists of an embryo, which will not develop into a fetus for nearly another month. No heart, and no other organ, is present. The so-called heartbeat" that abortion opponents refer to is actually the pulsing of some cells that are starting to specialize, and which will eventually form cardiac tissue if the pregnancy continues. At the phase of pregnancy when abortions are banned by the new Texas legislation, the embryo is about the size of a pea. There are no exceptions for rape or incest.