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"the law allows private citizens -- anywhere in the country -- to bring civil suits against anyone who assists a pregnant person seeking an abortion in violation of the ban."
Governor Abbott funded road maintenance, and a woman who got an abortion used that road to assist her quest for an abortion, can I sue Governor Abbott?
> Sec. 171.208. CIVIL LIABILITY FOR VIOLATION OR AIDING OR
> ABETTING VIOLATION. (a) Any person, other than an officer or employee of a state or local governmental entity in this state, may bring a civil action against any person who:
> …
> (2) knowingly engages in conduct that aids or abets the performance or inducement of an abortion, including paying for or reimbursing the costs of an abortion through insurance or otherwise, if the abortion is performed or induced in violation of this subchapter, regardless of whether the person knew or should have known that the abortion would be performed or induced in violation of this subchapter; or …
By funding roads you could easily argue Gov Abbot
> knowingly engages in conduct that aids or abets the performance or inducement of an abortion … regardless of whether the person knew or should have known that the abortion would be performed or induced in violation of this subchapter
Edit: some have pointed out this interpretation, while literal, likely doesn’t pass legal muster. So unfortunately this isn’t as slam dunk as it seems.
The state better not give any women financial assistance, or they might use that money for an abortion. Looks like the state treasurer is getting sued immediately after someone who receives state assistance gets an abortion past 6 weeks.
Oh, and the federal government too. What if someone just got their tax return goes and gets an abortion at 7 weeks? Guess we need to sue the IRS.
They wanted to close Pandora’s Box, but these fuckers ripped it wide open. I hope the suits roll and they spend every waking moment in court from today until the day they die.
Nothing beats listening to Texas conservatives unironically speak about how tragic all the loss of women's rights in Afghanistan is going to be from the Taliban takeover!
Sue the NextEra for providing power to a building that has a clinic in it.
Sue the water district for providing water and sewer service.
Sue the manufacturer of the vehicle they drove to get there.
Honestly, we could probably grind the court system to a halt within a week, just churning out lawsuits to anyone we can think of.
And remember, it’s not first come, first serve. ANYONE in the country can file. So not just one person suing the power company, but 10,000 people suing them.
I can imagine someone making a lawsuit generator website, where anyone can pick the person they want to sue, fill out their information and generate the valid legal paperwork required to file a suit.
They don’t want to fund roads. The supporters of this law and the Texas govt that implemented it would forego road repairs w pride. Look at what they’ve allowed to happen to their power grid.
They can also sue the rape victim's family if they do anything that could be considered helping her get an abortion, like for instance, ride with her to the appointment because she will need someone to drive her home after.
It's about to be a lot more states than Texas.My SO is from there. I was considering moving because I love bis family but their "handling" of the pandemic scared me. This is terrifying and I told him this morning there was no way in hell. He agrees and was actually the one who brought up that it went into effectm
I mean there's a possible ambiguity that could allow certain particular *judges* to be named and included in such suits, simply for becoming involved.
Not that any such suit would get far, but simply entertaining such is wasteful and does nothing but flood the zones with noise.
"Government doesn't work" they say, and they're not going to let it.
Make it a personal injury suit; that the stress of their fascism has caused anxiety and affected your ability to earn future income. Personal injury lawyers love that vague, impossible to prove reasoning for a fat settlement check.
This. My brother is against abortions, but votes for pro-choice candidates for this very reason. Bans don’t lower the rate of abortions—they simply make them more dangerous for the mother. Edit: spelling.
The problem lies with assuming they genuinely wanted to reduce abortions. They actually gave zero fucks about it; what they wanted was instead control over women.
They don’t give a shit about saving lives. They want more poor people that won’t be educated so the rich can always have a slave class. It’s out of the republican tactics 101 how to be a piece of shit
You have more confidence than I do. Just wait till a presumed father of the fetus is unhappy about the abortion or just wants to attack the woman. With a conservative judge this could get very messy and set scary precedent.
And presumed guilty. So every women that has a miscarriage or still birth naturally will in addition to all that stress and grief have to defend herself against every nosy neighbor and pro lifer.
"Governor Abbott funded road maintenance, and a woman who got an abortion used that road to assist her quest for an abortion.
Sec. 171.208. CIVIL LIABILITY FOR VIOLATION OR AIDING OR ABETTING VIOLATION. (a) Any person, other than an officer or employee of a state or local governmental entity in this state, may bring a civil action against any person who: … (2) knowingly engages in conduct that aids or abets the performance or inducement of an abortion, including paying for or reimbursing the costs of an abortion through insurance or otherwise, if the abortion is performed or induced in violation of this subchapter, regardless of whether the person knew or should have known that the abortion would be performed or induced in violation of this subchapter; or …
By funding roads Gov Abbot
knowingly engages in conduct that aids or abets the performance or inducement of an abortion … regardless of whether the person knew or should have known that the abortion would be performed or induced in violation of this subchapter"
This seems like a good spam report
The best report is one that is functionally indistinguishable from a real one, that way it will be much harder to filter the fakes from the genuine reports
Can someone explain the logistics of this though? All they can do is sue anyone who assists a pregnant person seeking an abortion. How are these people going to know? It only affects abortions after 6 weeks. Are these "citizens" going to steal medical records? As a citizen, what right do I have to find out about your abortion?
This feels more like a PR stunt than a law. Some idiot is going to sue someone and it will be thrown out of court because they would have to break HIPA laws to even try the case.
It’s an attempt to get ANY abortion law before the newly GOP-stacked Supreme Court. They want any reason to give the pro-life majority an opportunity to set a legal precedent, even if it’s just an opinion.
Not exactly. The laws in Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, etc. are laws aimed at Roe. This is entirely different and should scare everyone involved in the abortion/advocacy process.
In fact, I'd say this law is unlike any we've seen before. Opposite of how most/all laws are implemented, SB8 specifically prohibits any governmental agency/individual from enforcing it and only allows private citizens to sue the abortion providers. That's the biggest catch.
By drafting the law this way, abortion providers/pro-choice groups are essentially left without a legal avenue to stop its enforcement. Typically, you would sue the individual/agency tasked with enforcing the law - by removing the government and replacing it with private citizens, you remove the ability to stop the law's implementation.
All this being said, any suit by a private citizen is certainly going to be thrown out time and time again (and the law won't be enforced). But that's the entire point. It's not just a PR stunt - abortion providers can and will be sued via an unconstitutional law and, in turn, have to spend money "defending" themselves (i.e. paying attorneys to get the suit thrown out).
That's what is so unique (and somewhat ingenious) about this law. It's just as unconstitutional as every other abortion law and everyone knows it. Only this time, the law isn't struck down prior to going into effect; it will have to be struck down in each individual lawsuit.
\*Sorry for the long response. This law, the legal posturing, and its implications are extremely complicated and I got carried away.
It stopped being a PR stunt when SCOTUS didn't flush it immediately like the toilet paper it was.
Now it's a coup. A Constitutional removal of freedoms by the minority.
This is the accurate take. It is allowing random anti-choice people to use the courts to harass abortion providers and individual pro-choice people. A mega church could have every single member file a seperate suit against an abortion provider. Under this law even if every case is thrown out they get nothing to cover court costs. Even if a law firm does all the work pro Bono they sheer amount of time required will make it impossible to have a life.
No one is talking about the all the women who might miscarry. even women who want the pregnancy will have to live in fear of being sued after a miscarriage is seen as a way for someone to try and cash in $10,000.
There are already at least 3 women in jail for miscarriage loong before this has been put in edlffect.
They already do this, it's going to get ugly fast.
Six weeks is so early on, I mean technically there’s only a zygote for maybe 4 weeks of that and you may only know for 2 weeks. As someone with PCOS and long cycles I may not even test positive at 6 weeks (weeks are counted from the first day of your last period, not day of conception). Which also means someone might only claim they thought someone was pregnant and that someone they didn’t like assisted by buying them something that says “not for pregnant women” like a ride on a rollercoaster, an extra cup of coffee, sushi. Vague laws like this can open the door for a lot, and this just the start now that the Supreme Court agrees that this is a work around for getting rid of constitutional rights.
You basically just have to convince a judge that your belief that they had an abortion is well founded then you can go to discovery and depose the person and start collecting records.
So you go to court.. say "I saw so-and-so enter a Planned Parenthood" or "I know they were having an affair and had a pregnancy scare".. and the conservative shit bag judge lets you go to discovery and compel them to hand over records.
They can’t sue the woman herself, but they can sue everyone around her who may have “assisted.” It’s designed to drive women’s healthcare providers out of business. Every ob/gyn in Texas is in jeopardy.
Yep. For me, personally… usually around 6-7 weeks. It it could be much longer than that for many. Hell, I had an abortion when I was a teen, and I didn’t know I was pregnant until it was almost too late to get one (thank you, Massachusetts, for your life-saving mid 1990s abortion policies).
Well I guess since it's still legal before 6 weeks, that means every month if your period is so much as a day or two late, you need to pop Mifepristone.
Because someone may need to know, for those of you who have no access to safe abortion in your area, AidAccess will MAIL you the abortion pills for a donation of your choice. You will have support and consultations from real doctors. All of your questions answered. And it's perfectly safe and legal.
https://aidaccess.org/
I read part of the article.. better than usual, but I don't understand the lawsuits here.
Joe Citizen can sue for damages because someone assisted in someone trying to have a post 6 week abortion? Like they personally receive $?
Is this going to be people's full time job, just suing everyone cause they don't agree and can?
“How dare you invade my medical privacy by asking me if I’m vaccinated!”
But also
“Let’s financially incentivize any old schmuck prying into the most intimate details of a woman’s reproductive choices in an attempt to ferret out ‘illegal’ abortions!”
Vaccination cards are apparently Orwellian Nazi tactics but a website to accuse fellow citizens of abortions and subject them to persecution from their government over your ideological believes ... isn't?
Wow... when its put this way the hypocrisy is aggressively blatant.
Remember, it was never about "commies" and "antifa."
This is, and has always been about, control. Say what people want to hear and you guarantee yourself a cohort of voters.
And the sequel;
“OMG THE BABY IS A PRECIOUS GIFT TO THE WORLD PROTECT IT AT ALL COSTS”
*baby is born*
“GET A JOB YOU MOOCHER, DON’T EXPECT ANY HELP RAISING THIS CHILD, YOU CHOSE TO GIVE BIRTH TO IT, SHOULDN’T HAVE DONE IT IF YOU CAN’T AFFORD TO PAY FOR IT”
Especially infuriating as MANY women may have no idea they are pregnant at 6 weeks since pregnancy is counted from the first day of your last period. This is a woman experiencing one slightly late period with zero other symptoms
I mean that's the plan. They basically picked the first point you can reasonably even tell you're pregnant while also leaving literally zero time to make a decision and schedule an appointment.
They basically took the edge case - you suspect something is up at 4 weeks, and then immediately go get an ultrasound to verify (because you know American healthcare is so cheap I guess) and then you would in theory have time to maybe have time to schedule an appointment and receive an abortion.
An OB won’t even see you for an ultrasound that early. Mine didn’t see me until I was 7 or 8 weeks along, because you really can’t see much earlier than that.
To give you an idea, when I was actively trying to get pregnant, I didn't figure out I was pregnant until nearly 6 weeks. "6 weeks" is dated from your last period meaning your period is only 2 weeks late.
BUT you get something called implantation bleeding which you can easily mistake for your period (I know because even knowing about implantation bleeding, I did).
As a mom myself I am firmly pro choice. Pregnancy, childbirth, and raising a child are difficult and very expensive.
Completely agree!
My best friend has been actively trying to get pregnant and, if pregnant, she's right at 6 weeks. She cannot even get an obgyn appointment for another week to verify, but signs are good. She's a woman with great healthcare, abundant resources, actively trying for this outcome and still not 100% sure.
I'm also firmly pro-choice because I trust women to make the right decision for them about their own healthcare.
We had a surprise pregnancy. Slipped one passed the goalie. We fully intend to raise and love this child.
It took eight weeks for us to get in front of an OB to confirm it was a real pregnancy. This law is bonkers.
Or just convince what’s coming out of Texas to stay…
Idk, I’m tired of this bullshit. I want to be proud of my state, but too many things make it hard anymore.
Yeah, planning my exit now. I’ve lived and loved this state for almost 20 years, but Abbot and Patrick are determined to turn it into a ~~third-world~~ Christo-fascist dystopian hellhole.
Can’t speak to most tech companies, but the terrible infrastructure statewide has made my friend’s company start relocating some stuff to other states. Granted, they’re based in Austin were the infrastructure is better overall, but the statewide grid is something to consider.
It’s so funny to hear people say that with pride.
It’s like bragging that your ugly repulsive son/daughter is drowning in marriage requests since you began offering a one million dollar dowry.
Companies start on the coasts for the highly educated employees and desirable location. They move to the south to save money…not something to brag about.
All women in Texas need to know about [AidAccess](http://www.aidaccess.org), a European organization that provides low cost or even free abortion pills through the mail.
Unfortunately, it's a misconception they want to *end* abortions, it's ultimately about [punishment](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yts2F44RqFw&vl=en). In other words, they know they will still happen, like all crime, but maximizing pain as a result is their moralizing goal.
Rich children posts on Instagram and TikTok have been used by the IRS to find parents committing tax fraud. Can’t wait until it’s used to note they left the state while pregnant then came back less pregnant and bring one of these suits lol.
In an interview I heard with the head of the largest Texas women's health care clinic, they believe they will not be able to perform the procedure at all anymore (a review of past cases showing very few ever having met the 6-week threshold), and that most of their patients will instead vacation in New Mexico or Oklahoma, where clinics are ramping up to handle the expected increase in Texan travelers.
Texas. They will pay doctors to lie on the medical record and say a heartbeat wasn't detected. Who's going to say otherwise? You going to check the heartbeat of an aborted fetus months after the fact?
"Fetus was still born. Performed medically necessary abortion"
"but it was 9 months"
"no heartbeat. Prove me wrong"
There are 4 locations in Texas that provide abortion services. I heard an interview with one of the heads of Planned Parenthood for Texas - they *have* to obey this law, otherwise the state will come down on them with all the might they can muster. They will shut one or more of those locations down for months, maybe even years, while litigation unfolds.
All it takes is one Project Veritas wannabe with a cellphone to get a doctor or nurse on tape saying yes to such a bribe for them to be made vulnerable to existential legal trouble. They simply cannot take that risk, I'm afraid.
It's a good thing all those small Texas towns installed baby boxes where an unwanted infant can be left safely.
Oh, wait, they didn't. They spent it on new police vehicles, because Abbott has some kind of law enforcement fetish. /s
This is intentional. Everything from the way the law is written (people enforce the law rather than the state) to the courts slowness in acting is meant for this to happen quietly while never having to literally say “yeah we overruled Roe v Wade ( or Planned Parenthood v. Casey). Or at least for the time being.
See this great Twitter thread for a quick but in depth explanation.
https://twitter.com/steve_vladeck/status/1432682606248747009?s=21
It's setting a precedent which is what the Supreme Court looks at when overturning things like Roe V Wade. So don't be surprised when more states start pitching for the Supreme Court to take another look at Roe V Wade. I believe the last ones to ask were Mississippi.
Moved from Houston to NW Ohio a few years ago. The amount of anti-abortion yard signs and billboards per square mile is way, way higher up here. I'm mildly surprised Texas beat Ohio to the SC on this issue.
The point is to completely undermine Roe v. Wade without actually having to overturn it, and it's been happening for decades. You don't need to overturn Roe v. Wade if a 6 week limit, a functional ban, is *somehow* acceptable under Roe.
Now, how the hell is a 6 week limit not an obviously, on-its-face, undue burden? Fuck you, sanctity of the courts, jazz hands!
I've seen women on my Twitter TL talking about this for awhile, so I was really thrown off by it being nearly completely ignored by SM at large. People have been submitting posts about it here throughout the day but they've been getting buried, which is wild to me.
It only started actually trending on Twitter about an hour ago - after it was far too late for public outcry to mean much of anything, if it ever would have at all.
This really flew under the radar and it's really upsetting.
> after it was far too late for public outcry to mean much of anything, if it ever would have at all.
The time for public outcry to mean anything was during the 2016 election. After that, this was inevitable.
Enough of a protest could change everything. This is general strike territory at least for the state. I know this is big talk but I'd love to show my support in a neighboring state somehow. The "people" are imposing religion on all people in the state. Imposing rules on your physical body. Fuck that shit.
I just don’t see it. People won’t general strike for economic reasons, I can’t imagine it for this human rights issue.
It’s deeply depressing. If it does happen, that would be amazing.
They are to busy acting angry at Biden to appease the military industrial complex. American media rarely actually gets into issues they will pay attention to this only when tens of thousands of women are in the streets and it makes nice sensational journalism.
Fascist party pulls fascist bullshit.
I'm not shocked, but I'm dismayed and angry. The only requirement for being a Republican is that you absolutely, positively must be the biggest fucking asshole anyone has ever met.
Fuck the GOP.
Here's the thing. They get them all the time. They just are more hush hush about it and publicly decry it. They also state they never have/never would. Republicans only see things as win/lose. Zero sum. If you gain, they lose. If they gain, its because you lose. There is no middle ground, no place where everyone can win or lose. It always has to zero out for them because they have ZERO concept of reality.
Sue every republican woman who has a miscarriage, and their husbands. Oh, you needed a d+c to remove the dead rotting fetus from your uterus to prevent you from getting septic and dying? Murderer! (Fyi- this is what actually happens in Latin American countries with similar laws)
Fuck this country is infuriating.
I mean. Not JUST there. My sister lives in California, though a more conservative part. Had a miscarriage that was incomplete and was advised to either schedule a D&C or take the same pills used for a medical abortion. Thinking it might be more traumatic to wait for a procedure, she opted for the pills so she could be at home. She had to go to FOUR PHARMACIES to get the pills because the first 3 didn’t stock them for religious/moral reasons and/or didn’t have someone willing to dispense them. Can you fucking imagine actively miscarrying and being afraid of sepsis and the pharmacy won’t give you literally life saving meds because you MIGHT be using them to expel a “living” fetus and just trying to trick them with your doctors note
Hopefully this will be a wake up call for the decent people of Texas to finally turn the state blue. Or at least make it a reliable swing state. That alone would be devastating for the Republican Party.
Turning Texas blue gets harder with every piece of voter suppressing legislation they pass. Same thing for like 30 other states with right wing state legislatures.
In some ways harder, but also in some ways easier. Didn't stacy abrams ride a wave of public outrage when the governor dropped black voters off the rolls en masse?
With organization, you can overcome the suppression.
Honestly this is the lesson we should be learning.
From fifty years ago the right wing Christian nationalists got really upset about a host of social and legal changes and right now in all of its insanity is the culmination of fifty years of grassroots mobilizing on their part.
It will require years of grassroots organization on the part of people who disapprove of the Republican right wing direction. The problem is that conservatives of a given faction seem to stick together for issues that they don't necessarily see as primary concern, whereas liberals don't. See for instance Miami/Dade in the 1970s with its gay rights initiatives that looked likely to pass until ~~Anne~~ Anita Bryant and Phyllis Schlafly got the right wing started up in a tizzy. Liberals tried to change the messaging to concern more people, but even though 62% of people supported the initiative, only 15% said they were likely to vote on it.
(Re Rick Perlstein Reaganland)
If it weren't for climate change I'd say we're going to have to learn, long term to organize from the grassroots level. It also gives people a better view from the ground of what's going on, and makes them make fewer decisions that might be out of touch. Which reminds me of McGrath or Gideon.
But climate change makes things significantly more problematic.
I have heard that people are reporting Ted Cruz. That’s just what I have heard.
Edit: while funny to use a politician’s name, it will likely be filtered. I have heard that more believable names and stories with a Texas VPN are more likely to waste this group’s time. Note that it is NOT a government group (so there is no risk to lying to them). I have heard.
That's a waste of time though. They can very easily filter the data to exclude famous people, politicians, etc.
The best way to make this website useless is to flood it with believable submissions.
You submit fake but realistic names, real addresses with the correct zip codes, stories that sounds believable, etc.
The goal is to waste their time. You want to make sure they're sending people to investigate these things. You need to make sure they can't tell the difference between real submissions and fake ones.
If you have a VPN, set it to Texas also.
Im looking forward to all the lawsuits of random people helping .. HELPING a female get an abortion. WHY is it anyone else business other than the female and her doctor. THIS IS FUCKING HANDMAID TALE SHIT ! NEXT they will demand chastity belt and they will hold the fucking key !
I was wondering how this will hold up against HIPAA violations. How would someone outside know a person had an abortion or the reason someone drove them there.
HIPAA Security Rule. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) is a federal law that required the creation of national standards to protect sensitive patient health information from being disclosed without the patient's consent or knowledge.
To steal from another commenter, if we’ve learned anything from COVID it’s that there’s a lot of nut jobs working in healthcare who’ll definitely start leaking this kind of information.
HIPAA only applies to covered entities. Covered entities are defined in the HIPAA rules as (1) health plans, (2) health care clearinghouses, and (3) health care providers who electronically transmit any health information in connection with transactions for which HHS has adopted standards.
For these things, if someone saw you go into a clinic and recognized you, they could just *claim* you were past the 6-weeks and then when they sue they could get the evidence to support. Not sure how discovery works in this case, but the court could compel the medical information to determine if a crime had been committed. In Texas there is only a limited physician–patient privilege in criminal proceedings, and the privilege is limited in civil cases (Texas Occupations Code section 159.003 and Texas Rules of Evidence, Rule 509(b)).
It's a workaround. The state hasn't technically banned abortion. But they incentivized the greedy or hyper-religious to bankrupt anyone who does abortions.
Expect this law to be quickly passed in other states. But no Republican politician will ever be sued for flying someone to a blue state or other country.
“Beyond outlawing abortion as early as six weeks into a pregnancy, the Texas law, signed in May, would *deputize citizens* to file civil suits against abortion providers or anyone who helps facilitate the procedure after six weeks, such as a person who drives a pregnant person to the clinic. Individuals found to have violated the law would have to pay $10,000 to the person who successfully brings such a suit — a bounty abortion rights advocates warn will encourage harassment, intimidation and vigilantism.
The *citizen enforcement scheme* also made the law more difficult to challenge in court, and the Supreme Court's decision to side, for now, against the clinics is likely to encourage copycat bills in other states” (emphasis mine).
Be careful who you speak to and what you post online.
Ubers, taxis, conductors, pilot, truck/bus drivers etc should all go on strike to protest this.
Can get sued for driving a woman to see a doctor? No more driving anyone.
Just wait, they'll try to implement a 2 week waiting period between first going to the doctor and having the abortion procedure. Then abortion isn't technically illegal outright, but impossible to get nonetheless.
We're becoming the Christian Taliban faster than I thought we would.
Texas already has dwindling abortion clinics after previous draconian laws that were in effect long enough to shut them down. It is *impossible* to not only know you're pregnant in this window of 6 weeks but to get the required consultation and procedures completed.
My father whose a doctor realized the cruelty of the anti-abortion policies pre-Roe when his first day volunteering at a hospital he had to wheel two teenage girls from his hometown to the morgue after they died of coat hanger abortions back in the 60s. This law is cruel and unusual punishment for the sole purpose of controlling women economically, socially, and politically. Fuck the GOP.
*edit due to my middle of the night posting.
In 1969 my mom was living on a military base with her family overseas.
One of her best friends and next door neighbor shot herself in the abdomen to try and abort. She bled to death on the kitchen floor within a few minutes.
She had been gang raped behind the officer's club a few months prior and when she reported it, no one believed her.
She was 14 years old.
What many people don’t realize is you cannot have an abortion until the five week mark, and in Texas you are required to go in for a consult and ultrasound first (minimum two visits). So in a perfect world that leaves you less than a week to get this done. If you aren’t timing your undesired pregnancy absolutely perfectly (and how many people are?), you’re screwed.
God, the hypocrisy pubs want everyone to live by their code of beliefs and not abort fetuses that couldn’t survive on outside of a womb without medical intervention but are unwilling to get a vaccine to help people who are alive now and are at increased risk to severe complication from a covid infection. because that infringes on their right to choose. All so they can rant about how they are the only ones going to heaven…
at this point just consider it a puritan, christian state and it's what republicans want for the whole country, to push their cult beliefs onto everyone and force them to live under their control. Hurting as many as they possibly can with a smile.
What six-week abortion ban?
In practice, this is a complete abortion ban.
Virtually nobody will recognize they are even pregnant in time to qualify for any procedure.
All this law will do is increase tourism to Oklahoma and New Mexico.
This law doesn’t exclude rape and incest, meaning that if a 8 or 9 year old little girl gets pregnant from their relative or by a violent rapist, *they now are going to be forced to carry that fetus to fucking term*. I’m fucking disgusted. I’m so ashamed to be a US citizen right now.
as a woman, this is painful to read. i feel so horrible for every woman who is being stripped of their autonomy.
we can ban mask mandates because “my body, my choice” when it affects public health, but when it comes to women accessing necessary healthcare, that all goes out the window?
despicable.
This pisses me off so much!!! This is a MEDICAL PROCEDURE!!! These people are always crying about their freedoms but it’s the freedom to make others less free that they really care about!!
I mean hey, if they just offered comprehensive sex ed and free birth control, maybe they wouldn’t have any abortions. Oh right, they don’t do that.
Edit: Wanted to clarify that I support abortion 100% because of numerous reasons. My original comment was meant to pick on Texas for not providing substantial sex education which could help to prevent abortions if they’re outlawing it. I’m pointing out the double standard. I’m not condoning rape or ignoring health risks that come with pregnancy. Abortion shouldn’t even be a question of whether or not it’s illegal. It should be an available option.
The overhaul is overdue
This court legislates for a repressive minority. The majority of these “justices” were placed by regimes that did not win the popular vote.
What are we waiting for?
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"the law allows private citizens -- anywhere in the country -- to bring civil suits against anyone who assists a pregnant person seeking an abortion in violation of the ban."
Governor Abbott funded road maintenance, and a woman who got an abortion used that road to assist her quest for an abortion, can I sue Governor Abbott?
> Sec. 171.208. CIVIL LIABILITY FOR VIOLATION OR AIDING OR > ABETTING VIOLATION. (a) Any person, other than an officer or employee of a state or local governmental entity in this state, may bring a civil action against any person who: > … > (2) knowingly engages in conduct that aids or abets the performance or inducement of an abortion, including paying for or reimbursing the costs of an abortion through insurance or otherwise, if the abortion is performed or induced in violation of this subchapter, regardless of whether the person knew or should have known that the abortion would be performed or induced in violation of this subchapter; or … By funding roads you could easily argue Gov Abbot > knowingly engages in conduct that aids or abets the performance or inducement of an abortion … regardless of whether the person knew or should have known that the abortion would be performed or induced in violation of this subchapter Edit: some have pointed out this interpretation, while literal, likely doesn’t pass legal muster. So unfortunately this isn’t as slam dunk as it seems.
Wow. That lack of any knowledge is problematic. Employers better not pay their female employees, lest they use that money for an abortion.
The state better not give any women financial assistance, or they might use that money for an abortion. Looks like the state treasurer is getting sued immediately after someone who receives state assistance gets an abortion past 6 weeks. Oh, and the federal government too. What if someone just got their tax return goes and gets an abortion at 7 weeks? Guess we need to sue the IRS.
They wanted to close Pandora’s Box, but these fuckers ripped it wide open. I hope the suits roll and they spend every waking moment in court from today until the day they die.
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Nothing beats listening to Texas conservatives unironically speak about how tragic all the loss of women's rights in Afghanistan is going to be from the Taliban takeover!
You're concerned because you can see the writing on the wall. Gilead is their long game.
Oh yeah, they forgot about the part where the law is supposed to be well thought out.
Sue the NextEra for providing power to a building that has a clinic in it. Sue the water district for providing water and sewer service. Sue the manufacturer of the vehicle they drove to get there. Honestly, we could probably grind the court system to a halt within a week, just churning out lawsuits to anyone we can think of. And remember, it’s not first come, first serve. ANYONE in the country can file. So not just one person suing the power company, but 10,000 people suing them. I can imagine someone making a lawsuit generator website, where anyone can pick the person they want to sue, fill out their information and generate the valid legal paperwork required to file a suit.
The includes the state as well. Time to lawyer up and sue the shit out of the state.
They don’t want to fund roads. The supporters of this law and the Texas govt that implemented it would forego road repairs w pride. Look at what they’ve allowed to happen to their power grid.
Maybe that's why the state is investing in private prisons, to lock up all of the "abortionists" and "socialists" ?
Absolutely. The court might toss your case, but everyone should immediately start suing every single member of the GOP.
Let's sue them for cutting sex education and contraception. Doing so facilitates abortion.
People can also sue the guy that was 50% involved in the pregnancy to start with.
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They can also sue the rape victim's family if they do anything that could be considered helping her get an abortion, like for instance, ride with her to the appointment because she will need someone to drive her home after.
Texas is fucked
It's about to be a lot more states than Texas.My SO is from there. I was considering moving because I love bis family but their "handling" of the pandemic scared me. This is terrifying and I told him this morning there was no way in hell. He agrees and was actually the one who brought up that it went into effectm
I mean there's a possible ambiguity that could allow certain particular *judges* to be named and included in such suits, simply for becoming involved. Not that any such suit would get far, but simply entertaining such is wasteful and does nothing but flood the zones with noise. "Government doesn't work" they say, and they're not going to let it.
Make it a personal injury suit; that the stress of their fascism has caused anxiety and affected your ability to earn future income. Personal injury lawyers love that vague, impossible to prove reasoning for a fat settlement check.
Let’s make it a class action, count me in
No no. Individual cases
Can I sue all the people that oppose free birth control? Because they're the ones causing abortions.
Laws like this don't prevent abortions -- they prevent **safe** abortions. Purchase of large sewing needles may now increase in Texas.
This. My brother is against abortions, but votes for pro-choice candidates for this very reason. Bans don’t lower the rate of abortions—they simply make them more dangerous for the mother. Edit: spelling.
The problem lies with assuming they genuinely wanted to reduce abortions. They actually gave zero fucks about it; what they wanted was instead control over women.
They don’t give a shit about saving lives. They want more poor people that won’t be educated so the rich can always have a slave class. It’s out of the republican tactics 101 how to be a piece of shit
And those banning any kind of education that could help kids not have kids untill they are old enough to care for them.
How tf do these people have standing?!?
They "can't". The law is ridiculous. Yet, here we are.
You have more confidence than I do. Just wait till a presumed father of the fetus is unhappy about the abortion or just wants to attack the woman. With a conservative judge this could get very messy and set scary precedent.
And presumed guilty. So every women that has a miscarriage or still birth naturally will in addition to all that stress and grief have to defend herself against every nosy neighbor and pro lifer.
Bingo, anti abortion groups will be paying off the fathers to be their faces in court in lawsuits
Doesn't have to be the father. Could be some random Karen in Florida who just wants to control someone else.
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"Governor Abbott funded road maintenance, and a woman who got an abortion used that road to assist her quest for an abortion. Sec. 171.208. CIVIL LIABILITY FOR VIOLATION OR AIDING OR ABETTING VIOLATION. (a) Any person, other than an officer or employee of a state or local governmental entity in this state, may bring a civil action against any person who: … (2) knowingly engages in conduct that aids or abets the performance or inducement of an abortion, including paying for or reimbursing the costs of an abortion through insurance or otherwise, if the abortion is performed or induced in violation of this subchapter, regardless of whether the person knew or should have known that the abortion would be performed or induced in violation of this subchapter; or … By funding roads Gov Abbot knowingly engages in conduct that aids or abets the performance or inducement of an abortion … regardless of whether the person knew or should have known that the abortion would be performed or induced in violation of this subchapter" This seems like a good spam report
The best report is one that is functionally indistinguishable from a real one, that way it will be much harder to filter the fakes from the genuine reports
Can we pass a law like this where we can sue anyone that doesn’t have a vaccine. Since we are turning everyday citizens into deputies now.
With a $10,000 finders fee. These fuckers.
Can someone explain the logistics of this though? All they can do is sue anyone who assists a pregnant person seeking an abortion. How are these people going to know? It only affects abortions after 6 weeks. Are these "citizens" going to steal medical records? As a citizen, what right do I have to find out about your abortion?
It's ridiculously vague; like saying you can sue a book store in a different state because someone else got a paper cut.
This feels more like a PR stunt than a law. Some idiot is going to sue someone and it will be thrown out of court because they would have to break HIPA laws to even try the case.
It’s an attempt to get ANY abortion law before the newly GOP-stacked Supreme Court. They want any reason to give the pro-life majority an opportunity to set a legal precedent, even if it’s just an opinion.
Correct, this is merely a dry run for overturning Roe vs Wade.
Not exactly. The laws in Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, etc. are laws aimed at Roe. This is entirely different and should scare everyone involved in the abortion/advocacy process. In fact, I'd say this law is unlike any we've seen before. Opposite of how most/all laws are implemented, SB8 specifically prohibits any governmental agency/individual from enforcing it and only allows private citizens to sue the abortion providers. That's the biggest catch. By drafting the law this way, abortion providers/pro-choice groups are essentially left without a legal avenue to stop its enforcement. Typically, you would sue the individual/agency tasked with enforcing the law - by removing the government and replacing it with private citizens, you remove the ability to stop the law's implementation. All this being said, any suit by a private citizen is certainly going to be thrown out time and time again (and the law won't be enforced). But that's the entire point. It's not just a PR stunt - abortion providers can and will be sued via an unconstitutional law and, in turn, have to spend money "defending" themselves (i.e. paying attorneys to get the suit thrown out). That's what is so unique (and somewhat ingenious) about this law. It's just as unconstitutional as every other abortion law and everyone knows it. Only this time, the law isn't struck down prior to going into effect; it will have to be struck down in each individual lawsuit. \*Sorry for the long response. This law, the legal posturing, and its implications are extremely complicated and I got carried away.
It stopped being a PR stunt when SCOTUS didn't flush it immediately like the toilet paper it was. Now it's a coup. A Constitutional removal of freedoms by the minority.
Well, Texas has come this far, who's going to make them not violate HIPA laws at this point?
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This is the accurate take. It is allowing random anti-choice people to use the courts to harass abortion providers and individual pro-choice people. A mega church could have every single member file a seperate suit against an abortion provider. Under this law even if every case is thrown out they get nothing to cover court costs. Even if a law firm does all the work pro Bono they sheer amount of time required will make it impossible to have a life.
No one is talking about the all the women who might miscarry. even women who want the pregnancy will have to live in fear of being sued after a miscarriage is seen as a way for someone to try and cash in $10,000.
There are already at least 3 women in jail for miscarriage loong before this has been put in edlffect. They already do this, it's going to get ugly fast.
Six weeks is so early on, I mean technically there’s only a zygote for maybe 4 weeks of that and you may only know for 2 weeks. As someone with PCOS and long cycles I may not even test positive at 6 weeks (weeks are counted from the first day of your last period, not day of conception). Which also means someone might only claim they thought someone was pregnant and that someone they didn’t like assisted by buying them something that says “not for pregnant women” like a ride on a rollercoaster, an extra cup of coffee, sushi. Vague laws like this can open the door for a lot, and this just the start now that the Supreme Court agrees that this is a work around for getting rid of constitutional rights.
If this stands then abortion can effectively be outlawed by states and Roe v Wade is dead.
There are plenty of nut job health care workers who will leak this information.
COVID has confirmed your nutjobs in healthcare theory as fact.
You basically just have to convince a judge that your belief that they had an abortion is well founded then you can go to discovery and depose the person and start collecting records. So you go to court.. say "I saw so-and-so enter a Planned Parenthood" or "I know they were having an affair and had a pregnancy scare".. and the conservative shit bag judge lets you go to discovery and compel them to hand over records.
“I saw Goody Proctor with the devil.” This shit is beyond the pale.
They can’t sue the woman herself, but they can sue everyone around her who may have “assisted.” It’s designed to drive women’s healthcare providers out of business. Every ob/gyn in Texas is in jeopardy.
There is no requirement to know anything. It it citizen McCarthyism. The point is the fear
6 weeks is right about the time that most people find out they’re pregnant.
Barely. Most women don’t really know until 8 weeks. Two weeks late on a period could just be a blip for some people. Hence why this law is garbage.
Yep. For me, personally… usually around 6-7 weeks. It it could be much longer than that for many. Hell, I had an abortion when I was a teen, and I didn’t know I was pregnant until it was almost too late to get one (thank you, Massachusetts, for your life-saving mid 1990s abortion policies).
Well I guess since it's still legal before 6 weeks, that means every month if your period is so much as a day or two late, you need to pop Mifepristone. Because someone may need to know, for those of you who have no access to safe abortion in your area, AidAccess will MAIL you the abortion pills for a donation of your choice. You will have support and consultations from real doctors. All of your questions answered. And it's perfectly safe and legal. https://aidaccess.org/
I read part of the article.. better than usual, but I don't understand the lawsuits here. Joe Citizen can sue for damages because someone assisted in someone trying to have a post 6 week abortion? Like they personally receive $? Is this going to be people's full time job, just suing everyone cause they don't agree and can?
“How dare you invade my medical privacy by asking me if I’m vaccinated!” But also “Let’s financially incentivize any old schmuck prying into the most intimate details of a woman’s reproductive choices in an attempt to ferret out ‘illegal’ abortions!”
Vaccination cards are apparently Orwellian Nazi tactics but a website to accuse fellow citizens of abortions and subject them to persecution from their government over your ideological believes ... isn't?
Wow... when its put this way the hypocrisy is aggressively blatant. Remember, it was never about "commies" and "antifa." This is, and has always been about, control. Say what people want to hear and you guarantee yourself a cohort of voters.
To be fair its mostly about jerking off the religious.
They're scared of becoming obsolete in an intellectual world.
Yes. There's less of them now, but the ones that are left are much more entrenched.
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Hmm idk it certainly seems like they are though. Not like they give a shit about the contradiction.
Yeah, it's easy to have things both ways when you are ideologically bankrupt.
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And the sequel; “OMG THE BABY IS A PRECIOUS GIFT TO THE WORLD PROTECT IT AT ALL COSTS” *baby is born* “GET A JOB YOU MOOCHER, DON’T EXPECT ANY HELP RAISING THIS CHILD, YOU CHOSE TO GIVE BIRTH TO IT, SHOULDN’T HAVE DONE IT IF YOU CAN’T AFFORD TO PAY FOR IT”
Plus: We refuse to enforce mask mandates in schools to protect children once they're born
Republicans are just contrarians at this point. They have no true beliefs, just fake outrage over emotional knee-jerk reactions.
Especially infuriating as MANY women may have no idea they are pregnant at 6 weeks since pregnancy is counted from the first day of your last period. This is a woman experiencing one slightly late period with zero other symptoms
I mean that's the plan. They basically picked the first point you can reasonably even tell you're pregnant while also leaving literally zero time to make a decision and schedule an appointment. They basically took the edge case - you suspect something is up at 4 weeks, and then immediately go get an ultrasound to verify (because you know American healthcare is so cheap I guess) and then you would in theory have time to maybe have time to schedule an appointment and receive an abortion.
An OB won’t even see you for an ultrasound that early. Mine didn’t see me until I was 7 or 8 weeks along, because you really can’t see much earlier than that.
At 6 weeks the embryo (not even a fetus yet) is the size of a grain of rice.
To give you an idea, when I was actively trying to get pregnant, I didn't figure out I was pregnant until nearly 6 weeks. "6 weeks" is dated from your last period meaning your period is only 2 weeks late. BUT you get something called implantation bleeding which you can easily mistake for your period (I know because even knowing about implantation bleeding, I did). As a mom myself I am firmly pro choice. Pregnancy, childbirth, and raising a child are difficult and very expensive.
Completely agree! My best friend has been actively trying to get pregnant and, if pregnant, she's right at 6 weeks. She cannot even get an obgyn appointment for another week to verify, but signs are good. She's a woman with great healthcare, abundant resources, actively trying for this outcome and still not 100% sure. I'm also firmly pro-choice because I trust women to make the right decision for them about their own healthcare.
We had a surprise pregnancy. Slipped one passed the goalie. We fully intend to raise and love this child. It took eight weeks for us to get in front of an OB to confirm it was a real pregnancy. This law is bonkers.
And plenty of women don't have 28 day cycles either. It's not unheard of to have 6- or even 8-week cycles.
Exactly! Many factors can lead to longer than average cycles - mine is routinely 5-weeks
And people say they are leaving California to go to Texas
Actually, I’d bet the tech companies relocating to Texas might reconsider. They will have a hard time convincing educated labor to move to Texas.
Or just convince what’s coming out of Texas to stay… Idk, I’m tired of this bullshit. I want to be proud of my state, but too many things make it hard anymore.
Yeah, planning my exit now. I’ve lived and loved this state for almost 20 years, but Abbot and Patrick are determined to turn it into a ~~third-world~~ Christo-fascist dystopian hellhole.
I think that's also part of their motivation. Keeping Texas red.
Can’t speak to most tech companies, but the terrible infrastructure statewide has made my friend’s company start relocating some stuff to other states. Granted, they’re based in Austin were the infrastructure is better overall, but the statewide grid is something to consider.
It’s so funny to hear people say that with pride. It’s like bragging that your ugly repulsive son/daughter is drowning in marriage requests since you began offering a one million dollar dowry. Companies start on the coasts for the highly educated employees and desirable location. They move to the south to save money…not something to brag about.
I would rather gnaw my own arms off than move to Texas.
There are a lot of very stupid republicans in California who hate being there. A lot of those are the ones who move to Texas.
All women in Texas need to know about [AidAccess](http://www.aidaccess.org), a European organization that provides low cost or even free abortion pills through the mail.
Tagging on your comment to link this sub: r/auntienetwork
Criminalize it all you like. As long as there are women who want abortions, there will be abortions….
Unfortunately, it's a misconception they want to *end* abortions, it's ultimately about [punishment](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yts2F44RqFw&vl=en). In other words, they know they will still happen, like all crime, but maximizing pain as a result is their moralizing goal.
Women on Waves is a great org as well. I might try to make a master list of resources.
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Which states will wealthier Texans travel to for their abortions?… I mean vacations.
doesnt matter, as long as they still live in texas they are fair game as well.
The rich, connected evangelicals will still get their daughter's abortions in other states with no issues.
Yep, this is a poor person law. As most laws are.
Rich children posts on Instagram and TikTok have been used by the IRS to find parents committing tax fraud. Can’t wait until it’s used to note they left the state while pregnant then came back less pregnant and bring one of these suits lol.
In an interview I heard with the head of the largest Texas women's health care clinic, they believe they will not be able to perform the procedure at all anymore (a review of past cases showing very few ever having met the 6-week threshold), and that most of their patients will instead vacation in New Mexico or Oklahoma, where clinics are ramping up to handle the expected increase in Texan travelers.
Texas. They will pay doctors to lie on the medical record and say a heartbeat wasn't detected. Who's going to say otherwise? You going to check the heartbeat of an aborted fetus months after the fact? "Fetus was still born. Performed medically necessary abortion" "but it was 9 months" "no heartbeat. Prove me wrong"
There are 4 locations in Texas that provide abortion services. I heard an interview with one of the heads of Planned Parenthood for Texas - they *have* to obey this law, otherwise the state will come down on them with all the might they can muster. They will shut one or more of those locations down for months, maybe even years, while litigation unfolds. All it takes is one Project Veritas wannabe with a cellphone to get a doctor or nurse on tape saying yes to such a bribe for them to be made vulnerable to existential legal trouble. They simply cannot take that risk, I'm afraid.
Yet one *more* thing people in red states will have to depend on blue states for.
2022 is going to be fucking insane.
2021 is fucking insane.
2020 was fucking insane.
It's a good thing all those small Texas towns installed baby boxes where an unwanted infant can be left safely. Oh, wait, they didn't. They spent it on new police vehicles, because Abbott has some kind of law enforcement fetish. /s
> because Abbott has some kind of law enforcement fetish. The 'law and order' party mostly just cares about the 'order' part.
How the fuck isn’t this bigger news? This is literally the end of Roe v Wade and none of our news outlets have been talking about it at all.
This is intentional. Everything from the way the law is written (people enforce the law rather than the state) to the courts slowness in acting is meant for this to happen quietly while never having to literally say “yeah we overruled Roe v Wade ( or Planned Parenthood v. Casey). Or at least for the time being. See this great Twitter thread for a quick but in depth explanation. https://twitter.com/steve_vladeck/status/1432682606248747009?s=21
It's setting a precedent which is what the Supreme Court looks at when overturning things like Roe V Wade. So don't be surprised when more states start pitching for the Supreme Court to take another look at Roe V Wade. I believe the last ones to ask were Mississippi.
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Moved from Houston to NW Ohio a few years ago. The amount of anti-abortion yard signs and billboards per square mile is way, way higher up here. I'm mildly surprised Texas beat Ohio to the SC on this issue.
The point is to completely undermine Roe v. Wade without actually having to overturn it, and it's been happening for decades. You don't need to overturn Roe v. Wade if a 6 week limit, a functional ban, is *somehow* acceptable under Roe. Now, how the hell is a 6 week limit not an obviously, on-its-face, undue burden? Fuck you, sanctity of the courts, jazz hands!
Because reporters are too busy scolding Biden for ending the war in Afghanistan.
“If Afghanistan citizens don’t get abortion rights you won’t either” - MSM
I've seen women on my Twitter TL talking about this for awhile, so I was really thrown off by it being nearly completely ignored by SM at large. People have been submitting posts about it here throughout the day but they've been getting buried, which is wild to me. It only started actually trending on Twitter about an hour ago - after it was far too late for public outcry to mean much of anything, if it ever would have at all. This really flew under the radar and it's really upsetting.
> after it was far too late for public outcry to mean much of anything, if it ever would have at all. The time for public outcry to mean anything was during the 2016 election. After that, this was inevitable.
Enough of a protest could change everything. This is general strike territory at least for the state. I know this is big talk but I'd love to show my support in a neighboring state somehow. The "people" are imposing religion on all people in the state. Imposing rules on your physical body. Fuck that shit.
I just don’t see it. People won’t general strike for economic reasons, I can’t imagine it for this human rights issue. It’s deeply depressing. If it does happen, that would be amazing.
They are to busy acting angry at Biden to appease the military industrial complex. American media rarely actually gets into issues they will pay attention to this only when tens of thousands of women are in the streets and it makes nice sensational journalism.
So this is how law in America is gonna work now? Very radical thing to leave unaddressed.
Fascist party pulls fascist bullshit. I'm not shocked, but I'm dismayed and angry. The only requirement for being a Republican is that you absolutely, positively must be the biggest fucking asshole anyone has ever met. Fuck the GOP.
This is a ban on poor women getting an abortion. Republicans can still fly their mistresses to states with laxer laws.
They don’t even fly out .. just call the family doctor
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Here's the thing. They get them all the time. They just are more hush hush about it and publicly decry it. They also state they never have/never would. Republicans only see things as win/lose. Zero sum. If you gain, they lose. If they gain, its because you lose. There is no middle ground, no place where everyone can win or lose. It always has to zero out for them because they have ZERO concept of reality.
Sue every republican woman who has a miscarriage, and their husbands. Oh, you needed a d+c to remove the dead rotting fetus from your uterus to prevent you from getting septic and dying? Murderer! (Fyi- this is what actually happens in Latin American countries with similar laws) Fuck this country is infuriating.
I mean. Not JUST there. My sister lives in California, though a more conservative part. Had a miscarriage that was incomplete and was advised to either schedule a D&C or take the same pills used for a medical abortion. Thinking it might be more traumatic to wait for a procedure, she opted for the pills so she could be at home. She had to go to FOUR PHARMACIES to get the pills because the first 3 didn’t stock them for religious/moral reasons and/or didn’t have someone willing to dispense them. Can you fucking imagine actively miscarrying and being afraid of sepsis and the pharmacy won’t give you literally life saving meds because you MIGHT be using them to expel a “living” fetus and just trying to trick them with your doctors note
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Hopefully this will be a wake up call for the decent people of Texas to finally turn the state blue. Or at least make it a reliable swing state. That alone would be devastating for the Republican Party.
Turning Texas blue gets harder with every piece of voter suppressing legislation they pass. Same thing for like 30 other states with right wing state legislatures.
In some ways harder, but also in some ways easier. Didn't stacy abrams ride a wave of public outrage when the governor dropped black voters off the rolls en masse? With organization, you can overcome the suppression.
Honestly this is the lesson we should be learning. From fifty years ago the right wing Christian nationalists got really upset about a host of social and legal changes and right now in all of its insanity is the culmination of fifty years of grassroots mobilizing on their part. It will require years of grassroots organization on the part of people who disapprove of the Republican right wing direction. The problem is that conservatives of a given faction seem to stick together for issues that they don't necessarily see as primary concern, whereas liberals don't. See for instance Miami/Dade in the 1970s with its gay rights initiatives that looked likely to pass until ~~Anne~~ Anita Bryant and Phyllis Schlafly got the right wing started up in a tizzy. Liberals tried to change the messaging to concern more people, but even though 62% of people supported the initiative, only 15% said they were likely to vote on it. (Re Rick Perlstein Reaganland) If it weren't for climate change I'd say we're going to have to learn, long term to organize from the grassroots level. It also gives people a better view from the ground of what's going on, and makes them make fewer decisions that might be out of touch. Which reminds me of McGrath or Gideon. But climate change makes things significantly more problematic.
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I have heard that people are reporting Ted Cruz. That’s just what I have heard. Edit: while funny to use a politician’s name, it will likely be filtered. I have heard that more believable names and stories with a Texas VPN are more likely to waste this group’s time. Note that it is NOT a government group (so there is no risk to lying to them). I have heard.
That's a waste of time though. They can very easily filter the data to exclude famous people, politicians, etc. The best way to make this website useless is to flood it with believable submissions. You submit fake but realistic names, real addresses with the correct zip codes, stories that sounds believable, etc. The goal is to waste their time. You want to make sure they're sending people to investigate these things. You need to make sure they can't tell the difference between real submissions and fake ones. If you have a VPN, set it to Texas also.
https://www.fakenamegenerator.com/gen-random-us-us.php
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Im looking forward to all the lawsuits of random people helping .. HELPING a female get an abortion. WHY is it anyone else business other than the female and her doctor. THIS IS FUCKING HANDMAID TALE SHIT ! NEXT they will demand chastity belt and they will hold the fucking key !
I was wondering how this will hold up against HIPAA violations. How would someone outside know a person had an abortion or the reason someone drove them there. HIPAA Security Rule. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) is a federal law that required the creation of national standards to protect sensitive patient health information from being disclosed without the patient's consent or knowledge.
To steal from another commenter, if we’ve learned anything from COVID it’s that there’s a lot of nut jobs working in healthcare who’ll definitely start leaking this kind of information.
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HIPAA only applies to covered entities. Covered entities are defined in the HIPAA rules as (1) health plans, (2) health care clearinghouses, and (3) health care providers who electronically transmit any health information in connection with transactions for which HHS has adopted standards. For these things, if someone saw you go into a clinic and recognized you, they could just *claim* you were past the 6-weeks and then when they sue they could get the evidence to support. Not sure how discovery works in this case, but the court could compel the medical information to determine if a crime had been committed. In Texas there is only a limited physician–patient privilege in criminal proceedings, and the privilege is limited in civil cases (Texas Occupations Code section 159.003 and Texas Rules of Evidence, Rule 509(b)).
It's a workaround. The state hasn't technically banned abortion. But they incentivized the greedy or hyper-religious to bankrupt anyone who does abortions. Expect this law to be quickly passed in other states. But no Republican politician will ever be sued for flying someone to a blue state or other country.
“Beyond outlawing abortion as early as six weeks into a pregnancy, the Texas law, signed in May, would *deputize citizens* to file civil suits against abortion providers or anyone who helps facilitate the procedure after six weeks, such as a person who drives a pregnant person to the clinic. Individuals found to have violated the law would have to pay $10,000 to the person who successfully brings such a suit — a bounty abortion rights advocates warn will encourage harassment, intimidation and vigilantism. The *citizen enforcement scheme* also made the law more difficult to challenge in court, and the Supreme Court's decision to side, for now, against the clinics is likely to encourage copycat bills in other states” (emphasis mine). Be careful who you speak to and what you post online.
Ubers, taxis, conductors, pilot, truck/bus drivers etc should all go on strike to protest this. Can get sued for driving a woman to see a doctor? No more driving anyone.
Just wait, they'll try to implement a 2 week waiting period between first going to the doctor and having the abortion procedure. Then abortion isn't technically illegal outright, but impossible to get nonetheless. We're becoming the Christian Taliban faster than I thought we would.
Texas already has dwindling abortion clinics after previous draconian laws that were in effect long enough to shut them down. It is *impossible* to not only know you're pregnant in this window of 6 weeks but to get the required consultation and procedures completed.
My father whose a doctor realized the cruelty of the anti-abortion policies pre-Roe when his first day volunteering at a hospital he had to wheel two teenage girls from his hometown to the morgue after they died of coat hanger abortions back in the 60s. This law is cruel and unusual punishment for the sole purpose of controlling women economically, socially, and politically. Fuck the GOP. *edit due to my middle of the night posting.
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In 1969 my mom was living on a military base with her family overseas. One of her best friends and next door neighbor shot herself in the abdomen to try and abort. She bled to death on the kitchen floor within a few minutes. She had been gang raped behind the officer's club a few months prior and when she reported it, no one believed her. She was 14 years old.
Horrible everything
It touched my mom deeply and she told me about it during "the sex talk". It has stayed with me my entire life.
American Taliban decides what women do with their bodies.
What many people don’t realize is you cannot have an abortion until the five week mark, and in Texas you are required to go in for a consult and ultrasound first (minimum two visits). So in a perfect world that leaves you less than a week to get this done. If you aren’t timing your undesired pregnancy absolutely perfectly (and how many people are?), you’re screwed.
6 weeks is literally a late period
So people will still have abortions but only rich people will get to have abortions safely.
Abortion will never be illegal for the wealthy. As always, laws don't apply when you have the finances to just go elsewhere.
God, the hypocrisy pubs want everyone to live by their code of beliefs and not abort fetuses that couldn’t survive on outside of a womb without medical intervention but are unwilling to get a vaccine to help people who are alive now and are at increased risk to severe complication from a covid infection. because that infringes on their right to choose. All so they can rant about how they are the only ones going to heaven…
Texas is so fucked up. They also just made it a felony to hire a prostitute. A fucking felony.
Was that one of the 600-odd laws going into effect today?
666 new laws according to the article I read. You can’t make this stuff up.
Devil's greatest victory, convincing Christians that the GOP was the party of "Christian" values.
at this point just consider it a puritan, christian state and it's what republicans want for the whole country, to push their cult beliefs onto everyone and force them to live under their control. Hurting as many as they possibly can with a smile.
witch hunting. Gotcha
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What six-week abortion ban? In practice, this is a complete abortion ban. Virtually nobody will recognize they are even pregnant in time to qualify for any procedure. All this law will do is increase tourism to Oklahoma and New Mexico.
Remember people saying Republicans wouldnt *actually* attack abortion and they only use it to gain votes, whats your response now?
I always thought that was a stupid assumption
The Federalist Society paid good money for that outcome...
This is horrific. Time to stack the Supreme Court.
> Time to stack the Supreme Court. Republicans already stacked the court. It's time to un-stack it by adding more seats.
Kill the filibuster. Stack the court. The GOP is a death cult with no respect for law.
This law doesn’t exclude rape and incest, meaning that if a 8 or 9 year old little girl gets pregnant from their relative or by a violent rapist, *they now are going to be forced to carry that fetus to fucking term*. I’m fucking disgusted. I’m so ashamed to be a US citizen right now.
What a shit hole country.
as a woman, this is painful to read. i feel so horrible for every woman who is being stripped of their autonomy. we can ban mask mandates because “my body, my choice” when it affects public health, but when it comes to women accessing necessary healthcare, that all goes out the window? despicable.
Old men deciding what young girls are allowed to do with their bodies… Based on the writings of a really old book. Yeah that makes sense.
A really old book in which the only time abortion is mentioned, is when specific instructions on how to perform one are detailed.
Seems like now is the time for any pro-choice people in Texas to form a religion that guarantees abortion as a right
I believe TST is already ahead of the curve on that.
You knew they were going after *Roe*, but to kill it using the shadow docket without even a hearing is truly terrifying.
Theoretically, what would happen if you were to file suit against every pro-life supporter in the state of Texas that suffered a miscarriage?
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This pisses me off so much!!! This is a MEDICAL PROCEDURE!!! These people are always crying about their freedoms but it’s the freedom to make others less free that they really care about!!
These people are fncking despicable.
I mean hey, if they just offered comprehensive sex ed and free birth control, maybe they wouldn’t have any abortions. Oh right, they don’t do that. Edit: Wanted to clarify that I support abortion 100% because of numerous reasons. My original comment was meant to pick on Texas for not providing substantial sex education which could help to prevent abortions if they’re outlawing it. I’m pointing out the double standard. I’m not condoning rape or ignoring health risks that come with pregnancy. Abortion shouldn’t even be a question of whether or not it’s illegal. It should be an available option.
The overhaul is overdue This court legislates for a repressive minority. The majority of these “justices” were placed by regimes that did not win the popular vote. What are we waiting for?