Thursday, September 02, 2021

That Texas abortion law is a really bad way to deal with the issue

I find it hard to believe that anyone of moderate Conservative values (say, Douthat), can run a credible defence of the Texas anti abortion law as being good for society when it operates by enabling private actions against abortion.   From Axios:

Details: Texas' Senate Bill 8 does not provide any exceptions for rape of incest. It also allows for people to sue anyone suspected of helping a person to obtain an abortion, regardless of whether they have a direct relationship with the person or not.

  • Those who are successful can be awarded at least $10,000.
  • Texas Right to Life set up a "whistleblower" website where people can submit tips on individuals that they believe are violating the law... 

    Texas' abortion ban is hard to challenge because the state is not the one enforcing the law, private citizens are.

  • "The Constitution, including Roe v. Wade, only applies against the government, it doesn’t apply against private individuals," Laurence Tribe, a constitutional law expert at Harvard, told TIME.
  • "That’s what makes this really dangerous. It’s a kind of vigilante justice, circumventing all of the mechanisms we have for making sure that the law is enforced fairly, and that it’s not enforced in a way that violates people’s rights," Tribe added.

And this:


 This is real serious culture war stuff:   enabling those with pretty fundamentalist views of the morality of abortion to sue others who do not agree with them.

1 comment:

  1. the problem for those who oppose abortion such as I is that roe V Wade has been around too long. Abortion is seen as an entitlement.

    This law will affect only low income types not middle or high income types who can travel to other states.

    ReplyDelete