Annual Review Update Memo

• Author: Alexandra Himonas, Meredith Johnson, and Jacklyn Weon
• Pages: 113-120

ANNUAL REVIEW ARTICLES

ANNUAL REVIEW UPDATE MEMO

WRITTEN BY ALEXANDRA HIMONAS, MEREDITH JOHNSON, AND JACKLYN WEON

TEXAS’S SENATE BILL 8 ....................................... 113

FULTON V. CITY OF PHILADELPHIA ................................ 114

STATE V. ARLENE’S FLOWERS ................................... 116

LEGAL SEX CHANGE IN UTAH ................................... 119

Each year, the Georgetown Journal of Gender and the Law publishes an Annual

Review, in which we update several long articles previously published by the

Journal that cover certain topics in the legal field pertinent to gender and sexuality.

As the laws and cases in these areas are constantly being updated, there is often

more information pertinent to our Annual Review articles than can be published in a

particular edition. With that in mind, this Update Memo covers relevant updates to

our articles and gender and sexuality law that are otherwise not discussed in this

year’s Annual Review. These topics will likely be incorporated into future editions

of the Annual Review. In this memo, we discuss Texas’s Senate Bill 8, Fulton v.

City of Philadelphia, State v. Arlene’s Flowers, and legal sex change in Utah.

TEXAS’SSENATE BILL 8

On May 19, 2021, Texas’s Senate Bill 8 was signed into law as the Texas

Heartbeat Act (“the Act”).

1

Shannon Najmabadi, Gov. Greg Abbott Signs into Law One of Nation’s Strictest Abortion

Measures, Banning Procedure as Early as Six Weeks into a Pregnancy, TEX. TRIB. (May 19, 2021),

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/05/18/texas-heartbeat-bill-abortions-law/.

The Act bans abortions in Texas beginning six weeks

from conception.

2

More specifically, according to the text of the law, abortions

are prohibited after a “fetal heartbeat” is detectable.

3

The Act is controversial and

likely unconstitutional for several reasons. First, many women

4

The Georgetown Journal of Gender and the Law acknowledges that people of all gender identities

may seek abortion and thus are also forced to navigate the same restrictive thicket of policies surrounding

abortion. Abortion is not just a cisgender women’s issue, but that of any pregnant person, independent of

their gender identity. Because the vast majority of case law and statutory code regarding abortion refers

exclusively to cisgender women, the Journal uses the terms “woman” or “women” when directly discussing

statutes and case law that refer only to cisgender women, and otherwise seeks to use more gender-inclusive

language. While a more robust discussion of the particular difficulties that transgender and nonbinary people

face in obtaining abortion is beyond the scope of this Memo, it is worth noting that particularly because most

do not know that

1.

2. Id.

3. Texas Heartbeat Act of 2021, TEX. HEALTH & SAFETY CODE ANN. §§ 171.201, 171.204 (West

2021) (defining fetal heartbeat as “cardiac activity . . . of the fetal heart within the gestational sac”).

4.

113