The cruelty in the new Texas abortion ban has layers upon layers

[babylonsister]

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/9/1/2049585/-Texas-law-doesn-t-just-ban-abortion-at-six-weeks-it-puts-vigilantes-in-charge

The cruelty in the new Texas abortion ban has layers upon layers
Laura Clawson
Daily Kos Staff
Wednesday September 01, 2021 · 3:06 PM EDT


The Supreme Court didn’t just silently overturn Roe v. Wade by allowing a Texas law banning abortion at six weeks to go into effect. The Supreme Court, with its three Trump justices—two of them appointed through precedent-shattering Republican maneuvering—allowed Texas to put a bounty on the heads of anyone involved in any way in an abortion performed after six weeks gestation. (And never forget that six weeks is six weeks after the first day of a woman’s last period—meaning many women don’t yet know they’re pregnant at that time.)

In a must-read Twitter thread, legal analyst Jay Willis spells out the ways the new Texas law enables anti-choice vigilantes. That starts with the fact that anyone, whether or not they have ever met the woman obtaining medical care, can sue anyone who “aids and abets” an abortion. If the vigilante wins in court, they get $10,000 and their attorney’s fees. Someone who’s wrongly accused and proves it in court gets … to pay their own attorney’s fees. But it gets worse.

Link to tweet

“SB8 also allows lawsuits against people who INTEND to perform abortion or ‘aid or abet’ abortion,” Willis writes. “This is an open invitation to anti-choice activists to file lawsuits against everyone they don't like and try to drown them in frivolous litigation.” And since the anti-abortion right has been funding networks of lawyers for years, they’re equipped for a lot of frivolous litigation. On top of all of the abusive ex-boyfriends and ex-husbands seeking to use the law to continue victimizing and controlling women who have left them.

Not only that, Willis explains, ”People can bring suits up to FOUR YEARS later. And if a court decision briefly protects the right to abortion and then gets overruled, defendants can't rely on that, EVEN IF the decision was good law at the time. Perpetual threat of devastating liability.” That’s not the only failsafe Republicans built into the law to make any victory over it fragile and temporary, either: “the law specifies that any court ruling that any part of SB8 is unconstitutional is temporary and can be overruled as soon as a friendlier court comes along. Utterly deranged, but also, what the conservative legal movement has been working for for decades.”

Banning abortion at six weeks is an extreme attack on women’s right to make decisions about their own bodies. But it wasn’t enough for Texas Republicans. They went ahead and hedged it around with financial penalties even for the falsely accused, and attached to it a license for personal cruelty.

This law is just one of a series of laws Texas Republicans have just passed to turn the state into a dystopian hellscape in which violence, ignorance, and vigilantes rule:

Link to tweet

That Texas Republicans would do all this is horrifying but not surprising. The far bigger problem is that the Supreme Court let them.

[Walleye]

1. Requiring the national anthem? How many lives does that save? Is this capitalism?

[Maraya1969]

3. It sounds more like North Korea.

[Walleye]

4. Exactly. Oh and informing on your neighbors. Yuck

[irisblue]

10. Seems like a reboot of the East German Stasi

[TheRickles]

24. Why just before pro games? Why not college? Why not high school? Etc.

[Joinfortmill]

2. Remove

Caveman Kavanaugh and Handmaid Amy from SCOTUS.

[moose65]

5. I understand your sentiment...

But she’s NOT a handmaid. The handmaids are the protagonists in the story. Coney Barrett is an Aunt 😆

[ancianita]

12. Yeah, sure, how does that work, again?

[mwooldri]

6. So: how to fight this?

One way is to properly turn the Texas legislature blue. However with gerrymandering, voting rights restrictions, and the present state of politics in the US, I'm kinda pessimistic that this draconian legislation would be enough to turn out a massive reaction against the American Taliban presently in power in Austin.

Legally - could the courts be gummed up with this? What's to stop me filing a suit against a Jane (or John) Doe? Who's going to be the first victim in a test case?

Other way I can see is to legislate this in Washington DC. This then comes back to filibuster reform, and whether Democrats have the guts to introduce and pass meaningful legislation on the rights of people who have a uterus.

[irisblue]

11. Welcome to DU plexiglas onion. A question, do you like pizza?

[FoxNewsSucks]

13. I bet I can guess their favorite brand. . .

[irisblue]

25. I knew a delivery was imminent. 🍕

[Harker]

15. Goes well with a particular Western. n/t

[irisblue]

26. 😇

[ancianita]

14. How about passing the nationwide ratified ERA that's been sitting, waiting to be PASSED.

[mwooldri]

29. I like this.

Though I don't think this on its own is enough to ensure adequate protections for all uterus-bearing people. But yeah. Pass the equal rights amendment.

[ancianita]

30. Good.

Oh yes it is. On its own it would sweep away all gender restrictions on the law books across all 50 states.

All we HAVE to do is PASS IT.

[Claire Oh Nette]

20. Bring suit against ALL republican male office holders, and the women too.

Go to Zillow, find an address, and start reporting men who've aided and abetted. File suit against the gas stations. File suit against the large corporations--surely these women ate at Burger King, or stopped at Sonic on the way.... Turn in the Republican women, too. All of them.

This is another law that is poorly written and not thought all the way thorugh. And, I hope it wakes a sleeping giant, the women of the nation.

Of course the actual impregnation from men carelessly spilling their seed causes all unwanted pregnancies.

A mormon mother said it best.

http://designmom.com/twitter-thread-abortion/


I miss Ann RIchards.

[JohnnyRingo]

27. You might have something

Flood the courts with frivolous suits on the assumption that the plaintiffs believe an abortion was intended. Sure, it's like throwing darts blindfolded hoping one will hit a bullseye, but that's the spirit of the law. Sadly, I'm sure republicans will be suing women who suffer miscarriages too.

I'm not sure how Texas knows the abortion was planned before or after six weeks though.

[mwooldri]

31. Lots of lawsuits was what I had in mind.

Regulating sperm would also be a good idea IMO but I don't see that happening unless we had majority female legislatures and governors/presidents.

I hope this Texas law does awaken a monster that eats Republicans for breakfast (figuratively speaking of course).

[Claire Oh Nette]

32. Ann Richards is proof white men fear women.

Best analysis of the whole unwanted pregnancy/need for abortion EVER.

http://designmom.com/twitter-thread-abortion/

[bucolic_frolic]

7. Laws have to have some moral underpinnings and benefit to society

otherwise they are just frivolous or mean laws. I could pass a law that all shoelaces must be 34" and green. It would be legal, enforceable. Violators could be sued and fined, much like this law. It might be valid. But would it be a good law? No one could explain why it was good. Nor show any benefit to society. It might even be a detriment, since it would tie up legal time and the courts. I think the foundation of some of these new laws is tenuous.

[ecstatic]

8. Does the Department of Justice have a say in any of this?

[Evolve Dammit]

16. Exactly what I was wondering. Crickets so far

[HariSeldon]

17. It's time for fight mode

Tail every female Republican politician and wife of Republican politician. Find out when these women go to the OB/GYN, and sue each time.

[markie]

18. just read the act...

what kind of fucking asshole people would write something like this... this is scary beyond any comprehension... like a wicked sci-fi from the mid 20th...

if enough voters don't overturn this; we are lost

[Lonestarblue]

19. I can foresee some really negative consequences here, not just from lawsuits.

Anti-choice protesters already stand outside clinics and harass women going inside. Some clinics have had to hire guards to protect women and escort them inside. Even though many women, especially poor ones, use clinics for their healthcare, these rabid protesters will assume that every woman who goes to a clinic may be considering an abortion and they’ll start filing lawsuits. What do the poor women do who can’t afford a lawyer? Once the connection is made between going into a clinic and lawsuits, women will stop going to the clinics for any reason to avoid the harassment.

When that happens, the clinics get no reimbursement and some will be forced to close. Texas already lost 81 clinics, many of them the only clinics in rural areas, when the Republicans cut the budget so drastically that the clinics had to close. There’s now a big risk that more will close, after those first closures, the maternal death rate in Texas increased, but Republicans did nothing.

I think the bigger organizations like Planned Parenthood should just announce a new policy—that they will no longer be doing abortions in Texas but only providing their regular healthcare services. In essence, they’re not allowed to do abortions anyway because very few women know they’re pregnant at six weeks. Such an announcement takes away the antiabortion protesters’ reason for harassing women going to a clinic—and it removes the likelihood of frivolous lawsuits because they do not do abortions.

Other clinics would likely follow suit, spiking the guns of the vigilantes who want to sue the abortion providers. This may be the only way to save women’s healthcare clinics, which are sorely needed by poor women. Texas refused to expand Medicaid, and millions of people here have no health insurance. These clinics are truly a lifeline for them.

[Claire Oh Nette]

22. Planned Parenthood...

Another scapegoat. They provide women's reproductive health care--I obtained BCs and annual paps from them throughout college, until I had the insurance for a regular gynecologist. Let's see four years of BCs and paps, and only one visit for Other services.

95% of what PP does is NOT pregnancy termination.

Old white men who have no clue about women's anatomy and physiology are writing laws that disregard science.

Remember this asshat, and the rest of them, saying women should keep an aspirin between their knees, or that rape is like the weather, if it's inevitable, women should just relax and enjoy it?



Men writing laws that will never apply to themselves. This IS the very definition of tyranny. Of course, they'll be banning viagra and cialis, too, since god wants old white men to be flaccid.

I have bodily autonomy and a right to privacy. Get out of my pants, you pervy old goats.

[Bear Creek]

21. Leave the state

We will all need to take in Refugees from Texas. I hope the Afghanistan refugees don't head there. That's what they are escaping.

[Jon King]

23. I have my doubts this 'law' will ever be used in a court.

Seems it would open the 'private citizen' who sues up to cross suits. Texas can't shield them from cross suits no matter what they write into the law.

And the 'private citizen' who sues will obviously be funded by right wing groups. So the women can be funded by pro choice groups.

Once the lawsuit is actually filed, the women could sue the provider under HIPAA protections. Then the provider can't provide records to defend themselves. The women could sue the 'private citizen' for mental anguish, federal civil rights violations, anything the lawyers can think of. This would drag on in the courts for decades.

This sounds more like a pure scare tactic. I highly doubt even one case ever goes to court.

[ConstanceCee]

28. Vigilante Age Requirement?

How old do you have to be to be an anti-abortion vigilante? Could children turn in their mother? Can parents turn in their 12 year old daughter? Maybe schools could offer vigilante training along with active shooter drills.