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Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed a bill on Wednesday that bans abortion the moment a fetal heartbeat is detected. The move makes Texas one of the harshest abortion states in the country.

The law forbids any abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, a period when many women don’t know they are pregnant.

The bill takes effect in September and exceptions will not be made for victims of rape and incest. The law also allows citizens to sue anyone that helps a pregnant person break the ban. Although the provision cannot be used against pregnant people, it is targeted at abortion providers and activists.

President and CEO of Whole Women’s Health, Amy Hagstrom Miller, said the law was unconstitutional and puts providers and activists through “more legal chutes and ladders until we can figure out a strategy to try to block it.”

More than 300 Texas attorneys said the civil lawsuit “weaponizes the judicial system” and could expose Texas to harassment and abuse through the legal system.

During a signing ceremony, Greg Abbott, a Republican, advocated for the bill saying, “Our creator endowed us with the right to life and yet millions of children lose their right to life every year because of abortion. In Texas, we work to save those lives, and that’s exactly what the Texas Legislature did this session.”

The current law states that abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy is illegal, but during the pandemic, the state moved to ban all procedures in an effort to preserve medical supplies and resources. This resulted in an increased amount of Texans going to other states until the Supreme Court annulled lower court rulings that upheld the ban.

A statement released by Planned Parenthood Texas Votes and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund condemned the new law as “dangerous” and among the “harshest abortion bans in the country.”