A hot-topic in the recent elections, abortion has made its fair share in political division. On May 19, Texas Governor Greg Abbott enacted the Texas Senate Bill 8 – also known as the Heartbeat Bill. This bill restricts access to abortions in the state of Texas if the fetus has a detectable heartbeat and/or is over six months in the gestation period.

The abortion bill is needed, but should be tweaked in order to pass Congress. The reasons why, however, are quite broad.

Religious impact, life begins at conception

It should be easily pointed out that the majority of Texan and American citizens identify their religion as Christian, and can be proven according to the Public Religion Research Institute, where “70% of Americans identified as Christian” in their polling. Looking into the Bible, which is the notable book on which Christianity is based on, the Bible states that life starts at conception, as is further explained below.

Focus On The Family, a Christian-based organization that further evaluates scriptures in the Bible, states that in Jeremiah 1:4-5 the stance on abortion is written as, “Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying, ‘Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you were born, I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

What this can be evaluated as, and is further evaluated on by Focus On The Family, is that the Lord gives plans and meaning of life to fetus’ before they are in the womb – or as Focus On The Family describes as: conception. Conception can be scientifically described as the fertilization of the egg by sperm, and, typically, the conception period varies within a couple of hours to two weeks.

Essentially, while church and state are expected to, and should be, seperated in the United States’s government, the fact that the majority of Americans can be expected to lean a specific way as a result of their religious belief should be noticed in determining the handling of the topic.

Not only religiously, however, should the topic be considered, but scientifically fetus’ receive their own unique DNA coding in conception, to which many can describe as the first hint of life.

While the Heartbeat Bill restricts abortion to six-weeks in the gestation period, and the majority of Christians believe abortion should be abolished entirely, it’s still an honorable improvement when compared to the previous laws, bills and acts surrounding the issue. Also surrounding the Heartbeat Bill – continued abortion access in specific cases.

New-born health

While the act makes it a crime for a physician to perform an abortion with a detectable heartbeat, a specific exception that’s outlined in the act is if the mother’s life is physically endangered. The act also states that the exception does not apply to physiological or emotional disorders, illnesses or conditions.

This is an important exception to the bill, and according to the National Center for Biotechnology Information – a government organization that specializes in health by providing access to biomedical and genomic information – postnatal care of both the mother and the newborn is an important part in maintaining the newborn’s health. If the mother’s life was at risk by the birth of the newborn, and her state was unhealthy after the birth, the newborn would not receive the care that is typically needed, and could be detrimental to the baby’s physical or emotional health.

The bill needs tweaking

While there are, arguably, many issues with the Foster Care system – to which I agree – the solution cannot be to end life. Instead, inside of the bill, there should be allocated funds for Foster Care systems that can increase the functionality of the program, and allocated resources for individuals facing abuse.

Another issue that frequently comes up in the support of the act in courts and public support is the blocking of abortions for fetus’ conceived in cases of incest or rape.

While the majority of Americans are Christian, and according to the Bible, can be expected to support the act, cases like rape and incest are commonly a “soft-spot” in this topic. In order to gain more support for the act, as well as gain the trust of the majority of the public, the act should be tweaked to allow specific exceptions in cases like rape and incest.

Impact of the bill

Not only would the act signify the United State’s viewpoint and opinion on abortion, but will also set a precedent for how the country deals with the rights of unborn children in the future. Looking in the effect that Texas’s Senate Bill 8, also commonly known as the “Heartbeat Bill,” according to the Center of Disease Control and Prevention’s statistics, an abortion ban at six-weeks could prohibit the abortions of 33,000 fetus’ per year in Texas alone.