The state of Texas has passed a law that, in practical terms, outlaws abortion, and the Supreme Court has so far not responded to a request to block it. This makes Texas yet another state where it's either impossible or nearly impossible to procure an abortion.
There's nothing unexpected about this. Ever since last year, when Republicans got a 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court, abortion activists have been eager to find test cases that will give the Court an excuse to overturn Roe v. Wade. Maybe it will be the Texas law or maybe it will be some other abortion law. But sometime in the next year or two this is going to happen, and there's every reason to think that Roe will then be either completely or largely overturned. At that point, every state will have the authority to pass its own abortion laws, including ones that outright ban abortion.
This prompts me to propose something that's been niggling away at me for a long time. It might be completely stupid, but here it is.
Even if Roe is overturned, there will still be states in which abortion is fully legal. For the sake of conversation, let's pick California, Illinois, and New York as our examples.
So here's my idea. Someone rich sets up an organization, probably in partnership with Planned Parenthood, that arranges for abortions in any state where it's illegal. Basically, you call an 800 number and arrange a date. Maybe there's phone counseling required too. On the date, a car comes to your house and drives you to the nearest airport. You get on a plane to the closest state with liberal abortion laws, where a car is waiting for you when you land. You head off to the clinic and get your abortion. Then a car takes you back and you're home by nightfall. All of this is free of charge—or perhaps on a sliding scale depending on income.
My super rough horseback guess is that this would cost a billion dollars a year. Maybe two or three. This is really not much for a Bezos/Gates/Zuckerberg class of zillionaire for whom reproductive rights are something of a crusade.
I know that I'm being cavalier about a billion dollars, but honestly, I'd be willing to vote for an initiative in California that would fund something like this entirely out of taxpayer pockets and make California the abortion capital of the country.
Is there something I'm missing here? There's a whole lot of us, billionaires and thousandaires alike, who would be willing to fund something like this. Would there be something illegal about soliciting across state lines? Am I miscalculating the cost by a factor of a hundred? Is there some other obvious thing I'm overlooking?
None of this is meant to minimize the preferred solution of simply keeping Roe alive across the country. But given the fact that this might not be possible, is there anything wrong with making plans for what to do if and when it falls? If we can truly guarantee reproductive rights for a few billion dollars a year, surely that's not a very high price to pay?
Well, with the Texas vigilante law, anyone who aids someone getting an abortion (after 6 weeks) can be sued by any Texas resident. So driver of vehicle, anyone aiding with communications and arrangements, could be sued and liable for attorney's fees. So your solution would not help at all.
I thought the ability to sue wasn't restricted to Texas residents?
States can also make this a criminal act. I would not be surprised if they have done so already. That should not be constitutional given that free movement between states is fundamental to the constitution but there is no way this right-wing SCOTUS won't say, yeah, that's fine.
I don't think a court would actually regard such a law as impinging on the right to travel since that right isn't burdened. What's being addressed is whether a state can criminalize the act of having or performing an abortion outside of the state (then there would be a subset of jurisdictional issues whether one must at some point be physically present in the state or whether one state's criminal law can reach people who are acting lawfully in another state). This would probably set up a real confrontation in a very different area of constitutional law and also of criminal law theory and conflict of laws.
Years ago, Louisiana proposed a statute that criminalized having or performing an abortion as such, rather than having or performing an abortion in Louisiana. The difference being that Louisiana was seeking to criminalize acts committed outside of the state but which, arguably, implicated the interests of the state.
The clear intent of the proposal (which was also floating around in a couple of others very conservative states) was to make it a crime to go from Louisiana, have an abortion, and then return to the state. But also, it would be a crime to perform an abortion in a place where it was legal but then enter Louisiana for any reason.
I think that this proposal would be revived in Louisiana (probably elsewhere but definitely there)in order to make having an abortion a crime as opposed to having an abortion in Louisiana. My guess is that this would be upheld by the current court but would have definitely been blocked by any previous court in the country’s history.
but isn't this interstate commerce? Which is regulated by the feds?
I think there’s an argument that it could be. And I’ve no doubt that it would be if the federal government criminalized interstate travel for purposes of obtaining or facilitating an abortion. But, honestly, the operative principle is that the six Republicans on the Supreme Court want to outlaw abortion; whatever push in that direction will be upheld, whatever pushes in the direction of choice will be struck down.
Right here.
Well, I'm not the litigious type but I will note that within 2 hours of this being news I got an email from a raging liberal friend in the Netherlands (yes) explaining how to create an anonymous email address and spam a pro life website that's already been set up to take tips on people involved in abortions. You can only imagine how this is going to be used in GOP primaries. Gonna be a spectacle I imagine.
It will be interesting. But the (probably correct) assumption that it will be unpopular and cost the GOP votes has probably been overtaken by events. Increasingly , the Republicans no longer need the majority to rule so at this point it really is all about the base.
I never call them "pro life." They are anti-abortion, or anti-choice.
You realize that Title VII, the Fair Labor Standards Act, and section 1983 are "vigilante" laws too and yet no one on the left seems to have a problem with that.
The bottom line is that Roe is toast and this is the future we chose. Democrats have been in denial about this for years. We think the evangelical rubes will never call in their debts. They have.
To answer Kevin's question, the next time Rs get unified control and inevitably nuke the filibuster (showing the idiocy of Sinema and Manchin's attempt to preserve it) they will try and ban inteerstate travel for the purpose of seeking an abortion. Can't do that you say? Look up drug laws.
The political consequences of kicking it back to the state, which I think the most likely outcome, is that in blue states it will be legal, red states it will be illegal, and in purple states it will go back and forth requiring the expenditure of tons of political capital by Democrats to make legal. This will take a lot of fuel out of the fight since there won't be a problem in blue states.
As Democrats, we need to look ourselves in the mirror and ask ourselves how many more foreign wars, tax cuts for the rich, and so on we are willing to trade to keep the last abortion clinic in Mississippi open.
This is a ticking timebomb that the party hasn't done anything about except fundraise off of.
Fever swamp running a little bit hot tonite...
This rather feels like the Texas law will end up having a problem not on the restrictions but on the potential extra territorial / interstate issues.
What I wanna know is, can I claim that Ted Cruz has paid for a bunch of abortions, and the Texas police have to investigate, under this law?
No, but you could sue him and he can not ask for you to pay for his attorney's fees if you lose. Ok, consult a real lawyer....
From what I've heard, the way the law is written if could be used to harass anyone.--and if you miss a court date summary judgement against you.
Excellent advice!
Definitely good advise to consult with a real lawyer.
I think there would be serious conflict of laws issues surrounding such a suit in which the plaintiff had no reasonable basis and did no due diligence before filing suit. Yes, the Texas law (which is very poorly written on the assumption that it will only be enforced by Republican judges) seems to bar defendants from taxing unsuccessful (bad faith) plaintiffs with costs but it's also the case that, unless you're also a Texan, Ted Cruz could remove the action to federal court on the basis of diversity jurisdiction.
The federal court would obviously apply Texas laws but (here's the conflicts issue) has significant interests in applying its own procedural requirements for sanctions, etc (mostly Fed. R. Civ. P. 11). So you'd proceed at some risk that Cruz would make (and the court would grant) a sanctions motion and you'd probably need to hire an expensive expert in conflict of laws, which you really don't want to do. Believe me!
That's not a conflict of law issue. That's just Erie stuff. There's no conflict because the defendant is a citizen of Texas.
I'm assuming that there's diversity jurisdiction because Ted Cruz is a citizen of Texas and DF Paul is a citizen of some other state. So I believe that Cruz could remove to federal court.
The conflicts question arises if Cruz removes for the purpose of what we'll assume would be a well taken motion under Fed. R.Civ. P. 11. The question would be whether the federal court would apply the substantive law of Texas and uphold its value of criminalizing abortion in violation of Roe v. Wade or whether it should apply its own rules and uphold its own important interests of discouraging bad faith pleadings.
I believe the federal courts would choose to uphold the value of discouraging lawsuits like the hypothetical but obviously spurious, bad faith one mentioned by DF Paul. So the federal court would impose sanctions even though they are forbidden under Texas law.
The other interesting question would be whether other Texas defendant sued by Texas residents could remove to federal court on some basis (federal question?) and thereby also gain access to sanctions for bad faith pleading? Don't know the answer; definitely above my pay grade.
@Mitch Guthman
I can envision a cottage industry in Texas of tracking and outing hypocritical right-wingers and Republican office holders who have facilitated abortions -- you know they have, since the law is not for their daughters and secret girlfriends. The new law says we don't have to live there to file suit, and if the research is good enough the suits will all end in $10,000 fines. Sure it's petty. Who cares?
Sounds like a very good idea. I think we should start a “probable cause” fund that would offer substantial bounties to those who disclose abortions and perhaps also extramarital sexual activities, etc. I personally am done coddling these assholes.
"Is there something I'm missing here?"
Red states would likely respond to such a program by arresting formerly pregnant women (and their "enablers") as they got off the plane in the state after successfully getting an abortion in some other state. Or they would pass similar laws like the one in Texas, only this time allow anyone to sue anyone else for facilitating travel outside the state to procure an abortion, even if those "facilitators" were entirely out-of-state. And then we'd have to trust in SCOTUS to uphold the principle that states can't punish out-of-state people for not following state law while out-of-state.
Arresting them after the abortion would probably be legally challenging even with the current Court. More likely they'd harass the women beforehand, with a suspicious family member tipping them off to arrest women who seem to be considering it.
"Arresting them after the abortion would probably be legally challenging even with the current Court."
LOL. I put literally nothing past the current court.
"Arresting them after the abortion would probably be legally challenging even with the current Court."
Thanks for the hearty laugh. It might eventually get thrown out of court, but in the meantime, the people arrested off the planes will need to pay for a lawyer. It's essentially how gays were still being arrested well after Lawrence v Texas in parts of the South... "oh Your Honor, we didn't realize that the sodomy law still on the books was unenforceable... we'll let the defendant go, now that they've already paid for a lawyer to bring this to our attention in court."
These are lawsuits the left should want. Travel to another state to do something that is legal is that state?
"And then we'd have to trust in SCOTUS to uphold the principle that states can't punish out-of-state people for not following state law while out-of-state."
It is not a matter of trust. Roberts and several other conservatives on the court are institutionalists and they are not stupid.
I’m not sure that’s a principle this court would actually uphold. Partly because of federal criminal laws that give the US jurisdiction over activities that take place entirely outside of this country. But mainly because there’s six votes who basically anything the right wants to do.
Interestingly, that potentially takes us back to the Fugitive Slave Act and the relationship between a state’s power within its borders and the power of the federal constitution to force one state’s judgment that its power extends to the territory of other states of the union. Specifically, whether a state like Texas can criminalize the act of having an abortion in a state where it’s legal.
The other interesting question (as in Dred Scott) is to what extent the Supreme Court can or will force states to submit to the demands of other states which follow the court’s preferred ideology. Could the court force states where abortion is legal to nonetheless submit people (women who get abortions, abortion providers, anyone whose activities Texas disapproves of) within their territory to be extradited to Texas to be tried for acts which are crimes in Texas but legal in the jurisdiction where they took place.
"Basically, you call an 800 number and arrange a date. Maybe there's phone counseling required too. On the date, a car comes to your house and drives you to the nearest airport. You get on a plane to the closest state with liberal abortion laws, where a car is waiting for you when you land. You head off to the clinic and get your abortion. Then a car takes you back and you're home by nightfall."
Under SB8, the driver of both cars, the airline and the phone company would all be potentially liable for facilitating the abortion. (Assuming the call center and donors to the whole program are out-of-state and SCOTUS doesn't allow Texas to rope them into state court too.)
It's over-kill, too. Really all you need for most abortions would be a way for women in these states to secretly get a teleconference meeting with a doctor in a blue state, and then get the necessary pills mailed to them in an envelope that won't arouse suspicion.
Good point
It's not entirely clear that the conduct by out of state actors who are reaching into a state like Louisiana or Texas can't be criminalized. The United States, for example, has quite a few laws which criminalize conduct that takes place entirely outside of the country by non-citizens. If states were allowed to follow the example of the federal government, not only would the actors you mention be liable for activities inside, for example, Texas, it seems logical that that it would be possible to charge and extradite (under Full Faith and Credit) prospective defendants whose conduct was legal in their own state but violated Texas laws.
And there’s an historical precedent which would be particular appealing to contemporary Republicans: Dred Scott v. Sandford and the Fugitive Slave Act which said the Constitution does not give any state the right to restrict slavery and free states must honor legal processes of slave states and return escaped slaves.
This is where they'd get you. They'd go after whatever drivers try to provide this service, and probably go after the women using it too. You'd have to have them cross state lines to a state that won't prosecute them first before you provide this service, and even then they might try to go after the women - get police to pre-emptively arrest them if it seems like they might seek an illegal abortion.
A better idea would be for one of the blue states to allow the necessary pills to be effectively sold by mail OTC, and then set up a website that can be anonymously accessed from red states where women can order the pills in the mail. Say that the pills will come from an innocuous, spam-letter-looking envelope.
The big challenge is the states in the Deep South, where a woman might have to drive hundreds of miles to get to somewhere that has legal abortion. With Texas at least it's a little bit easier since they're right next to New Mexico.
Police can't enforce the law. It's a citizen civil law suit only.
I think you are missing Kevin's point. The point is that billionaires have lots of money. There is no way the driver (who does not have to be told the pickup has anything to do with an abortion), gets nailed, and you have the billionaire there to pay the legal fees.
I don't think his post was meant to finesse every detail, that is what the billionaire's lawyers are there for. They will do it better than we can.
What if they use robot cars? Would the owning company be liable?
One thing I should add - this law is meant to intimidate, to make people refuse to help with abortions (or women to get them) with the fear that zealots will sue their doctors and family/friends.
The best thing blue states and wealthy pro-choice people could do immediately would be to fund free defense legal counsel for anyone sued under the new law. If every one of these cases has to go to court and get tried in a dragged-out law-suit, it will completely paralyze the system's ability to actually enforce the law and clog up the Texas court system.
For the moment, covid can unpredictably mess with travel plans. However, absent covid issues, in northern states a quick trip to Canada, which has NO abortion laws, might be the easiest and cheapest way to get an abortion.
The patient would need a passport for this.
How about an "abortion" visa?
Of course conservative ass-hat lawmakers would just pass even more draconian state laws declaring that abortion is murder, and then arrest the women for murder when they got off the plane.
I say let the voters of these states face the consequences of their actions in electing rabidly anti-choice legislators and governors. Till now being super-anti-abortion has been a relatively consequence free position to hold because you didn't have the power to actually outlaw abortion. Now you do. Let's see how the people of these states actually like this state of affairs over the next few years. The democratic process may take care of this in a lot of states.
I was thinking the same thing. This will be a pretty big case of the dog finally catching the car, and then getting dragged across town. About as big a political gift as you could possibly hand to state Dems.
Pretty harsh for the women who are victims of this "state of affairs" though. They're the ones whose lives are forever ruined so you can see how "the people of these states actually llike this state of affairs over the next few years." The "democratic process" didn't stop this, even though it doesn't have majority support in the state. The state just passed draconian voter suppression laws to keep small-d democratic voting from taking place any time soon. I don't know why you think democratic process will take care of it.
I'm not seeing how the people of these states like it. It's the state leaders doing it.
If it turns Texas, that would be pretty big.
This.
I'm so tired of the courts and the filibuster letting people off the hook for their idiotic voting choices. This is the future we chose and it's in particular the future the red states will choose.
When they have a spike in crime and public assistance, we'll see what they do.
Meanwhile, we should stop spending political capital to keep the one or two places in these states open and instead do something like what Kevin suggests as long as it's possible.
The left took this issue for granted so it could start its new culture wars over tweets and pronouns and now the bill is due. So many on the left act like the Republicans just don't exist and it's just a matter of capturing the Democratic party and mainstream cultural institutions.
2022. Abortion is illegal and you can get fired for a typo when addressing someone. Great work, guys!
Meanwhile, the climate continues to die, wealth inequality continues to spiral and all we talk about are people's feelings. It's pure ambience politics. And this is why we lose.
The democratic process may take care of this in a lot of states.
That assumes in five or six years we still have a "process" worthy of the modifier "democratic."
There's a non-trivial probability the country will effectively be an autocracy by the spring of 2025.
Elections.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/350804/americans-opposed-overturning-roe-wade.aspx
You mean like how they favored withdrawing from Afghanistan?
Can you break that down by electoral vote?
No.
I’m a man and have no close friends or relatives who would be affected by this ban or even a total ban. It’s really not something I care much about. But The loss of abortion access is one more indication of the coming civil conflict. The police from red states will arrest the those traveling for abortions upon their return. It’s going to be a way that the federal government becomes marginalized by local fanatics.
You’re going to have to fight them.
This is a shortsighted point of view. On this view, why should I pay school taxes? Why should I care about any resident of any other state? We're in this together, and we should care about the rights of others, not because it's an indication of the coming civil conflict, but because, again, we're all in this together.
I mean, I'm not a Christian, but I do remember The Golden Rule.
C'mon. Do better.
But we’re not all in this together. Not anymore. My ambivalence about this issue is of no concern. But the fight will be nasty again. Back to the days of clinic protests and harassment.
I kind of agree. We aren't all in this together. These folks were laughing at people dying of COVID a year ago because they were in blue states. Let them stew in their own regressive marinade in those places.
Excuse me, but how would said police, or even said "whistleblower," even know, A, that the woman in question left the state for a day, and B, whether or not she was pregnant when she did? Who would be in a position to tell on these women if they're reasonably discreet, other than a sumbitch family member out for revenge for some reason? Most women don't "show" for several months, especially overweight ones. (My own mother was not overweight, but all but her closest friends were stunned when she turned up with a baby.)
Yes, this would catch some particularly dense or stupid women, but I don't see how it would catch most or even many.
Dense or stupid women. Well, that’s your description. It takes just one crazy relative and a rural county sheriff willing to do the deed. They exist already. They crawled out of the swamp after the election last year and they are already emboldened.
Sez you, entirely ducking my point. The swamp creatures have to find out about it, and I'm saying it's likely they won't in most cases.
I believe they will find out about it. Maybe not all the time, but enough to effectively shut down the remaining clinics.
Exactly. You would have to set up a police state with an american equivalent of the Stasi.
Abortion rights are petty popular. The percentage of people willing to becomes a police state over this issue is small.
Yes, there will be some $10,000 fines as it plays out. That is what the billionaire is there for.
Women who have the means will travel to California or other abortion friendly states on their own. My 94 year old mom was just telling me about her friend who traveled to Mexico for her abortion in the 60’s. Women who don’t have the means will use other methods as they did in those days. We can’t hope for or expect a benevolent rich guy to help us. The thing that makes these laws so evil is that it is assumed that women who have the means will think the law doesn’t apply to them so they should feel free to continue voting for the Right Wingers who put the laws into place.
Democrats in general, and women in particular have to organize, march, and protest as vocally as possible. These laws can’t be allowed to stand and the people who write them should be voted out.
What really chaps me under the saddle is the number of men who sign on to stop abortions. Hello, you are the other half... So, no abortions and who is going to pay to raise this unwanted child, feed and clothe them and educate them. Who is going to love them? I can tell you it isn't the anti abortion idiots. It should be a condition that every single person who is against abortion must adopt one of these children. Let's see how the anti aboution bill goes then.
I'm a woman, it's my body and I will decide if I receive an abortion or not. The usual male material likely won't be around to foot the bill. Not being negative here. Only saying the truth.
Men still get to vote, just like women still get to vote on men's issues, so what you're saying, while a nice political talking point is objectively false.
I think Roe should stand--hell I think Casey narrowed it too much--but as a political matter, the left has been so wildly outplayed on this it's just sad (but typical).
One may expect that the win for the Christianist right in the USA here will end up being a Pyrrhic victory, in taking away one of the great motivators and glues holding their vote together while heavily motivating the Democrats and non-religious conservative women.
The Left relying on the courts for this battle was probably on the wrong strategy in the end.
The inter-state aspects, that however has potential to get rather nastily messy.
What non-religious conservative women? In Virginia they are now solid Democratic voters, so ticked off at the crazy GOP in my state.
They are not the "left". Got it yet???
I don't think your idea would work nor is it necessary, but if you're going to do it, you'd organize as a 501(c)(4) social welfare nonprofit organization, allowing you to hide your donors on your 990. Instead of dedicated network of volunteers and workers accommodating travel to/from clinics, you'd simply have an internal contact network as first/last contact layers. After extensive consultations, they would then pass clients to an outside contractor to set up booking flights and Uber rides for individuals. These layers would create roadblocks to limit data from spilling over and out, exposing the names of clients and workers.
I'm puzzled. You seem to say Kevin's idea would not work, and then you give a lot of advice about how to make it work.
I think the key part of Kevin's idea is that the sums involved are small to a multi-billionaire, including the cost of litigation.
Yeah. The solution remains stuck in the cat-and-mouse game, which I'm no fan of, because you know, the cat responds.
The cost isn't the issue; it's the anonymity and therefore, the lowering of risk exposure in an increasingly bizarre country being driven towards political violence.
I get your point, thanks.
If we were really serious about fighting this, there's a simple solution: pass a law such that, anybody who sues under this law in Texas, is guilty of a felony in California. Ditto every other Blue state. Every lawyer who prosecutes such a case, is similarly guilty. Every judge who rules for the plaintiff, similarly guilty.
This will work, because the people with deep enough pockets, are the type who want to visit our (*OUR*) cities, our well-run states.
The one problem, of course, is that SCOTUS would instantly strike it down. Let. Them. Defy. Them. It's time. It's fucking time.
Oh, and of course, minimum mandatory sentence of five years hard time. No pissant fines. Five years hard time. Doubles for each of multiple offenses. You're a judge who rules for the plaintiff in four such cases? Lucky you: forty years hard time.
Waiting for a real lawyer to comment, but the Texas law seems to violate some of the most fundamental precepts of common law. I wonder how long the Supremes can continue to duck the issue?
I'm a lawyer. I think the law will stand all of this freak out over it being "vigilante" is going to get us pwned.
There are MANY so-called vigilante laws. If they get ruled unconstitutional as such, then we lose 99% of the enforcement of labor laws, sexual harassment, racial discrimination, enforcement of special education rights, police brutality (in what's left of section 1983) and other government abuses.
In other countries, government agencies do that work, but we don't fund the EEOC or Labor department within several orders of magnitude of what it would take to enforce these laws at the level that private litigants do now because of attorney's fees provisions.
There will be a conservative show host making fun of this aspect of the liberal reaction to this law today and he will be right.
There's a difference between laws that create a right of action for people who are injured by the conduct of others and laws that create a right of action for anyone, no matter how disconnected from the impugned conduct. In general, people suing over labor laws, sexual harassment, etc. are people who have been injured by conduct prohibited by the relevant laws.
Texas's abortion law, if I understand correctly, does not require the plaintiff to show injury, or even a meaningful connection to the case.
Of course, it's a fact that the usual rules on standing have been modified with respect to challenges to anti-abortion laws, mainly because legal process is too slow for a pregnant woman to meaningfully challenge a law infringing on her right to an abortion. I suppose similar logic might hold that the standing rules for people suing aborters need to be unusual.
One says to oneself; "As long as they want to, silly rabbit". Sigh. They're already lawless hacks, and Roberts is no longer in control: the median vote is ... what? Alito? Gorsuck-this? Rapey-K ?
It's up to us in the Blue States to make it plain that this sort of lawlessness will not stand. And we have only one way to do this: defy SCOTUS and slap those bastards right back.
Social Security should be required to create trust funds for each fetus to pay for his first gun.
This is a way station, person-hood is the real goal.
Agreed. The supreme court will certainly rule that abortion is actually unconstitutional across the entire country. This will happen within 5 years barring a miracle.
Won't work. Abortions will just not only go on, but increase. You still don't get it.
Like it matters. Abortions have been going on without "legal cover" for 1000's of years. They can try criminal laws against it, but money matters and the black market will be flowing......and it's safer and easier than 50 years ago.
Assuming (highly unlikely) SCOTUS keeps the portion of the law that allows any private citizen to gain standing despite not having a contractual relationship or is otherwise directly impacted by the private actions of individuals, I think this is a boon for liberals.
Think about all the laws you could fashion after Texas' abortion lawsuit rules that target race, gender, age, and sexual discrimination. How about private gun sales and gun shows where the seller failed to perform due diligence? How about actions to restrict voting? OMG, this is a boon for liberals, are you kidding me?
Thanks, Texas and conservatives!
I have a book recomendation: https://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Post-Roe-America-Robin-Marty/dp/1609809491
Handbook for a Post-Roe America is a comprehensive and user-friendly manual for understanding and preparing for the looming changes to reproductive rights law, and getting the healthcare you need—by any means necessary. Activist and writer Robin Marty guides readers through various worst-case scenarios of a post-Roe America, and offers ways to fight back, including: how to acquire financial support, how to use existing networks and create new ones, and how to, when required, work outside existing legal systems. She details how to plan for your own emergencies, how to start organizing now, what to know about self-managed abortion care with pills and/or herbs, and how to avoid surveillance. The only guidebook of its kind, Handbook for a Post-Roe America includes an extensive, detailed resource guide for all pregnant people (whether cis, trans, or non-binary) of clinics, action groups, abortion funds, and practical support groups in each state, so wherever you live, you can get involved.
With a newly right-wing Supreme Court and a Republican Senate, Roe is under threat. Robin Marty observes: "When we say abortion will be illegal in half the states in the nation, we are no longer talking about some hypothetical future—we are talking about just years down the road. We have to act now to secure what access remains, shore up the networks supporting those who need care, and decide what risks we are willing to take to ensure that any person who wants a termination can still end that pregnancy—with or without the government's permission."
I think that The Satanic Temple would be glad to lead the way on doing something like what Kevin describes. They already have an abortion ritual. Religious freedom cuts both ways.
Actually, I understand that the Bible does not consider the "fetus" or "tumor" to be human until it takes the "breath of life", Matthew 6, if memory serves.
Overlooking liberals mandate that abortion should be rare.
For the record, below are March 2021 Texas poll results on abortion. Majorities of both men and women think abortion laws should be "less strict" or "left as is".
Responses of males:
More strict 35%
Left as is 18%
Less strict 36%
Don't know/No opinion 11%
Responses of females:
More strict 30%
Left as is 18%
Less strict 37%
Don't know/No opinion 15%
Yes! I have wondered the exact same thing. It just would not be that expensive.
If the Supreme Court had not decided that it would proclaim abortion law for the land in 1973, instead of letting elected representatives create the laws, perhaps by now state legislatures would have worked out abortion laws. There was no anti-abortion movement in 1973, and Roe v Wade jump-started one. My guess is that most states would have legalized abortion.
So now we have to deal with 1973. But 48 years later our politics have turned tribal and toxic. Roe v Wade helped give us these politics. Evangelicals vote for the most right-wing candidates they can find because of Roe v Wade.
It was a surprise decision
Yes. Perhaps the states would’ve worked out abortion laws on their own, just like how states worked out equality for minorities on their own without the federal courts getting involved.
Lolz, what "equality" ????
Congress set standards that outlaws discrimination by businesses and government entities. States have to develop their laws within this framework. So the process worked via federal laws created by Congress rather by court edict.
You misunderstand the driving forces of the Pro-Life movement. It wasn't Roe v Wade that lit the match. It was Jimmy Carter taking away tax exemptions for private segregation academies. My neighbor Paul Weyrich wanted a way to unite the Catholic bigots and the Evangelical bigots together in a common cause to jump start the modern conservative movement. He knew that fighting the tax exempt issue head on would be saying the quiet part out loud so he struck upon selling evangelicals on how evil abortion was as the pubic reason for the conservative movement.
As many have noticed it was never really about the babies, it was about keeping women in their place. It was another front in the war to maintain the White Male Patriarchy.
"Catholic bigots" and "Evangelical bigots". Reminds me why so many on the right are repelled by so many on the left. And reminds me of why so many would turn to a guy like Trump.
So a Catholic that opposes abortion, as they follow church doctrine, is a bigot? Come on.
Abortion is a fundamental moral issue regarding what point in time a woman should be allowed to have the developing human inside of her killed. That is no small matter. Roe v Wade declared it's illegal after viability. Others think it should be sooner or even at conception. You can believe you absolutely know the morality of this, but I'd say you are overconfident. Abortion is a really hard issue. And it's not about the White Male Patriarchy. Polls show men and women have similar views on allowing abortion.
The issue is entirely how to keep women legally enslaved.
That's the entirety of their motivation. Injuring someone is the only thing that matters to them. It's the only thing that matters to them in anything they do.
There is no other part to it.
On the far left and the far right people are convinced they are expert mindreaders, and they know the terrible motives of their political opponents. You just gave an example of this.
On the other side they are convinced people on the left are socialists/communists who secretly want to destroy the country.
Both groups have it all wrong, and that is why our politics are toxic.
Then you can find a single example of a conservative policy that doesn't have the specific purpose of harming someone behind it either explicitly or, just by chance, incidentally.
When you can't find one think about all those you thought about and had to dismiss and ask yourself what they all had in common.
You aren't seeing the nuances in the groups. There are Catholics who are Pro-Life, there are Catholics who are bigots, the overlap while great isn't 100 percent. I was raised in a devout Catholic family, went to 12 years of Catholic school. I know the community well.
I drifted away from the church because I couldn't reconcile all the comforting thinks said about God's love but the clear fact that in the Church god seemed to favor White Guys over everyone else. Now that's not the case everywhere in the Church for sure but the local Church here in Northern Virginia is a hotbed of wingnut conservative Catholics. Pat Buchanan was one of them, The Scalia Family are others. Also the FBI traitor from the 1990s and FBI director Louis Freech.
There are already nonprofits, including the Texas Abortion Access Network, that can assist women with paying for an abortion, including travel expenses. With this new law, though, TAAN may be forced to close, as the service they provide is now illegal. Also, abortion providers in blue states may begin to refuse patients from Texas, as the law now allows them to be sued for assisting anyone who lives in Texas. But go check out TAAN anyway and donate some coin. They need it now more than ever.
No billionaire is going to stick his neck out like that.
Rich reactionary conservatives stick their necks out all the time: David Green (Hooby Lobby), the Koch brothers, Mike Lindell (My pillow), Richard and Liz Uihlien (ULINE), David MacNeil (Weathertech), Dan Cathy (Chick-fil-A). What's the difference?
They're reactionaries and the other reactionaries aren't going to try to kill them over it.
A non-reactionary billionaire will always end up paranoid over what he might have missed out on, so their good works are more covert or non-controversial.
I'm more or less on board with the general sentiment in a lot of these comments: it's just not up to Blue states to bail out the residents of unhinged red states. Yes, to some extent that always happens anyway (due to various federal programs). But in recent years it has become explicitly obvious that living in a red state is a serious and imminent threat to one's life. Some examples: the recent winter storm in Texas that exposed the faults of their poorly designed electrical grid, the red state governors (in places like Texas and Florida) passing laws to prevent businesses or schools from passing Covid-related safety measures, or the permit-free gun laws that are increasingly common throughout red America. And now this new abortion law in Texas.
Add it all up and a few possibilities emerge. For one thing, those states and residents may really want to live in life-threatening environments. In that case, there's not much we can do for them. Or, maybe there's a minority of people there unhappy with the situation. Well, I know that moving can be expensive and difficult. I've done it many times, and I've lived in 3-4 different parts of the country as a result. And my experience is that where there's a will there very well may be a way (however difficult). So, I hope any who wishes to move out of those states is able to do so. But, what if a majority of the public in those crazy red states are actually unhappy about some or most or even all of these problems. Well, that's where democracy is supposed to kick in. If they want public health and safety, there is absolutely no reason why they can't vote for it themselves. And, even though I hate to sound even remotely republican, it really is ultimately their own responsibility to vote responsibly in their own states.
And that's why Republicans are trying to make it legal for them to throw out any election results they don't care for.
Kevin is proposing his idea for the case if roe v wade was completely overturned . I do think the number of states that would ban abortion is smaller than many assume. Most swing states would not, if only because changing something after it has been legal for decades is much harder than if they had been allowed to keep it illegal the whole time.
And most that would cut it back will only do so partially. A lot would ban abortions in late trimester - that policy by itself would get majority public support in most states. Some will ban after fitst trimester.
In the context of Kevin's idea, you would only need to provide out of state abortions from many states after first or second trimester and that will greatly limit the number.
But I think his cost estimate is still too low. For one, you also need to verify that they are pregnant! Or except that you are also going to be paying for women who scam you by saying they are pregnant but are not to get you to pay for a free trip. And I doubt you could sue them if you are trying to get around a state law.
And setting up something where you arrange the transportation brings up a whole host of legal issues that you have to deal with. But just sending the money really sets you up for a scam .
But, even if he is underestimating the costs, yes it still would in the end effectively gut state laws banning abortion.
And note that, even without such a program, the large majority of those getting abortions are not so poor that they could not manage to drive to another state if they had to do so.
Many who are pro life and also those on the other side seem to think that it would cause a huge change in actual number of abortions. But it just would not. I expect it might prevent 5% of current abortions at most. The large majority of those currently getting abortions will be unaffected as in states that will not change from current policy or be in states which only restrict it for 2nd or 3rd trimester so it would just force them to decide sooner or deal with a reasonable hassle of going out of state.
Does the Texas law make any abortions illegal, as some have said ?
My understanding is that it does not, it just allows someone to sue in a civil action. And it was deliberately crafted to not do that so as to sidestep roe v wade.
But that also means that any enforcement cannot extend into criminal issues like the legal concept of " aiding and abetting " a crime. Extending a civil suit to someone who drove them to an airport is going to be a very difficult legal thing .
And I have not yet heard how it is supposed to work if the doctor does get sued by an unrelated party. Even if they are allowed to sue , are they allowed to collect if they cannot prove damages?