Two important things here. First, SCOTUS did not "give the green light" to anything. No one on the Court, including the dissenters, suggested anything the Court could actually do at this stage of the proceedings, i.e., in an emerency hearing with no briefing or arguing of the elephant in the room - Roe v. Wade - that would allow abortions in Texas to continue. SB 8 has a chilling effect on abortions. No emergency Federal court action can make abortion legally safe in Texas pending resolution of the case on the merits.

That the Court did not prevent the law from "going into effect" does not mean that the Court ever has the power to prevent a law from "going into effect." Only enforcement can be enjoined, and there is no enforcement action being taken, no one being arrested, no one whose property has been confiscated at this point.

But Ms. Abril is onto something when she says the law "criminalise[s]" abortion. I think the strongest argument against this law, when it it litigated on the merits, will be that it calls a crime - an offense against the state - a "tort" in an attempt to get around a lot of law on the subject. By any existential test, this statute is a criminal law, and defendants under it should be entitled to all of the protections accorded criminal defendants, including appointment of counsel if they can't afford a lawyer. If I am right about this, and Roe v. Wade is overturned - which I do not expect it to be - this statute, to the extent that it creates this pseudotort, will likely be found unconstitutional on other grounds.

Another part of SB 8, the part that really matters, is the finding by the state legislature that the state's anti-abortion criminal statutes have not been repealed or in any other way rendered inapplicable. Enforcement is on hold while Roe is the law, but If Roe is overturned, the existing criminal statutes will click in, according to Texas's legislature, anyway. That will create a law school professor's wet dream's worth of constitutional issues.