Texas’s strict new abortion ban hands over the power of enforcement to private citizens – and offers them cash payments to do so – a unique construction that makes the law harder to block in court.

That structure has alarmed both abortion providers, who said they feel like they now have prices on their heads, and legal experts who said citizen enforcement could have broad repercussions if it was used across the United States to address other contentious social issues.

“It is a little bit like the Wild West,” said Harold Krent, a professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law. He called it a throwback to early U.S. history when it was common to have privately enforced laws at a time when the government was limited and there was little organized law enforcement.