Date of Award

Fall 2025

Degree Type

Honors Thesis

Major

Politics

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

First Advisor

Brian A. Weiner

Abstract

While the constitutional right to an abortion was the law of the land in the U.S., Texas sought to restrict that right in line with their political agenda by passing S.B. 8 (2021), referred to as the “Texas Heartbeat Act”. This statute made access to abortions illegal past six weeks, or once a heartbeat is detected. The enforcement structure created in the law did not look to the state to exercise its role as the executor of the public good, but rather, to private citizens in creating a right of action for individuals to sue anyone who “aids or abets” an “unlawful” abortion. The use of this enforcement structure creates a “remedial vacuum” in which the federal judiciary does not have jurisdiction to provide a remedy for a potential violation of constitutional rights. This thesis uses a mixed-method approach to understand the political crafting of this legislation as a case, the doctrine of the Supreme Court of the United States, and how one might use this doctrine to reassert the power of review for the federal judiciary. The findings of this paper point to the needed reinterpretation of the State Action Doctrine as a remedy for the court to reassert their jurisdiction in the face of states that seek to circumvent constitutional order in other policy domains. By incorporating the plaintiffs in these enforcement schemes as state actors through the aforementioned doctrine, the law restores the pre-enforcement remedial mechanisms in order to ensure rights cannot be chilled by political schemes.

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