Today, the Supreme Court upheld a Texas law (SB8) that bans abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, however, the justices said abortion providers have the right to challenge the law in federal court. This is a brutal blow to women’s rights. With the ruling, the nation’s highest court has in a sense overturned Roe v. Wade, paving the way for states to craft their own abortion laws, and forcing abortion providers to file costly lawsuits.

Perhaps the most sinister aspect of the Texas law is that private citizens, from anywhere in the U.S., can file civil suits against anyone who assists a pregnant woman seeking an abortion.

The fact that the conservative-leaning court added the option for providers to challenge the ruling in federal courts only adds insult to injury. Should abortion providers challenge the law in court, they would be burdened with legal fees and court costs, not to mention having to close their doors to patients as they wait for court dates.

But it’s not just abortion providers that would suffer from the high cost of defending a women’s right to choose. Anti-abortion laws demand a high price from state residents as well. For example, over the past five years, states who restrict abortion have cost taxpayers up to $10 million in attorney fees. When laws are overturned in court, and abortion providers win, it puts states in the position of having to pay for the attorneys on both sides of the battle lines.

Just last year, the state of Tennessee agreed to pay abortion provider attorneys $249,000 to cover legal fees when they challenged Gov. Bill Lee’s executive order temporarily banning most abortions. Guess who picked up the tab.

The Supreme Court’s ruling on the Texas law means that the case will return to a district court for further review, but this doesn’t help health providers in the Lone Star state. They may not be able to keep their clinics open. Challenging laws takes a lot of money and time, some of which many providers do not have.

Upholding this law will also force women in Texas to seek abortions in other states, such as New Mexico. When SB8 was first signed into law by Gov. Abbott last fall, abortion clinics in New Mexico saw an increase in patients from Texas.  Adrienne Mansanares, chief experience officer for Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, said that within a few weeks of the Texas abortion ban, their two clinics in New Mexico saw a definite increase in patients from out of state. “What we saw in the first week [of September] is what we typically see in a month,” she said.

The Texas law doesn’t just target abortions after six weeks, it also makes abortion telemedicine in Texas a felony offense.

Brittany Defeo, program manager for the New Mexico Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, said that patients who are pregnant between six and10 weeks have to travel long distances from Texas to get to their clinic in Albuquerque in order to take FDA-approved medications for abortions (mifepristone and misoprostol).

Unlike Texas, abortion telehealth is available in New Mexico and allows a pregnant woman to take both pills at home. However, the service is not available to out-of-state residents.

Fortunately for New Mexico, in 2021 legislators repealed a decades-old law making it a crime for a doctor to perform an abortion in the Land of Enchantment. This move arose over Trump’s appointment of three conservative Supreme Court justices who have a history of anti-abortion sentiment. New Mexico lawmakers read the tea leaves just in time, predicting that the nation’s highest court could possibly overturn or weaken Roe v. Wade.

Pandora’s box has been opened for other states to follow suit in diluting or down-right eliminating a woman’s right to choose. The fact that the Supreme Court has turned its back on the Constitution is both alarming and tragic. By throwing the onus on states, the court is washing its hands of upholding the 14th Amendment and creating a state-based free-for-all attack on abortion rights.