On Wednesday, after deliberate inaction on the part of the conservative U.S. Supreme Court, the “heartbeat bill” took effect in the state of Texas. It bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. Considering that most women don’t learn that they’re pregnant until just around that time, abortion has essentially just been outlawed in Texas.

And, of course, other Republican-led states are now falling all over themselves to enact restrictive abortion laws patterned after the Texas law.

I find it ironic that Republican law makers in Texas (and in other “red states”) decry government overreach when it comes to “personal liberties” such as mask mandates, COVID vaccinations, common sense gun laws, and federal oversight on virtual anything, but they’re quite comfortable with government overreach when it comes to a woman’s uterus and interfering with her ability to make sensitive reproductive health decisions privately with her medical provider.