Not just stupid fascist; Republican stupid fascist
Lawsuit targets Texas abortion law deputizing citizens to enforce six-week ban
[The operative phrase here is Texas abortion law deputizing citizens to enforce six-week ban:
"Y'all feel free to go ahead and shoot anyone who looks like they might be thinking' about havin' an abortion, ya' hear."
What could possibly go wrong?
"John, John, John, you typical east coast left-wing elitist lying scum. There you go exaggeratin' again. The law don't say you can just up and shoot somebody! The law only says you can sue anyone who might be even remotely connected to the abortion in any way (except the father, of course)!"]
Abortion rights advocates and providers filed a federal lawsuit in Texas on Tuesday seeking to block a new state law empowering individuals to sue anyone who helps a woman get an abortion, including those who provide financial assistance or drive a patient to a clinic. [emphasis mine]
A dozen states have passed laws banning abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy. But the Texas law, set to take effect in September, goes further by incentivizing private citizens to help enforce the ban — awarding them at least $10,000 if their court challenges are successful. Even religious leaders who counsel a pregnant woman considering an abortion could be liable, according to the lawsuit filed in Austin by the Center for Reproductive Rights, Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of several other groups. [emphasis mine]
[Can you even imagine the tidal wave of frivolous lawsuits this will create?
Texan 1: "Billy Bob, we're outta ammo again, and we ain't got no money to buy no more!"
Texan 2: "Ain't no problem, Mary Sue! Didn't you see Jimbo buy-in' some of them condoms a while back? Ain't birth control the same as abortion? That's what my pastor says! We can sue him! And even iffin we lose, the Great State of Texas will pay us $10,000 just for tryin'! And I knows about 100 other people we can sue besides! If we sue 100 people and get $10,000 each time, we could make upwards of 20 or 30 thousand dollars!"]
Proponents of the measure, which had the backing of the Republican governor, cheered passage of the “heartbeat bill” as a landmark victory and denounced the lawsuit filed Tuesday.
But abortion providers say the law, known as S.B. 8, is unconstitutional and will subject them to endless lawsuits, shut down clinics and reduce services — and they say it will isolate abortion patients by undermining support networks for pregnant women.
[Well that's the point, now isn't it.]
“The state has put a bounty on the head of any person or entity who so much as gives a patient money for an abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, before most people know they are pregnant,” Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a statement. “Worse, it will intimidate loved ones from providing support for fear of being sued.”
[Exactly. This is the stuff of fascist regimes: Turn neighbor against neighbor.
And in Texas, no less, where it's already practically illegal for a baby to be born without a gun in its little hand.
Doctor: "Ma'am, your baby looks healthy and all, as far as it goes, but there was a little problem. He was born without a gun. You know that means we have to kill him, right?"
Mother: "Of course, doctor. I wouldn't want no son who don't carry a gun anyhow."]
Although abortion patients themselves cannot be sued under the Texas law, a controlling parent, disapproving neighbor or abusive spouse could target the woman’s doctor in court to try to stop the abortion.
[Neighbor against neighbor. Keep their eyes off the regime.]
... “It’s really, really scary for me to imagine the people we pass through to go to work on a daily basis, who yell at us . . . now have the authority and ability to sue me at will,” Sadler said. “Not only is it an attack on the access, but it absolutely feels like a personal threat as well.”
[This is a brilliant, if incredibly cynical, move on the part of the Texas GOP:]
... More than 85 percent of women who choose to terminate their pregnancies in Texas are at least six weeks into pregnancy, according to advocates, so the law would prevent nearly all abortions in the state, and operations at Sadler’s clinics would decrease, she said.
Similar measures that ban abortion after a doctor detects a fetal heartbeat, or around six weeks of pregnancy, have passed recently in other states, including this year in Idaho and Oklahoma. But federal judges have prevented those measures from taking effect.
The Texas law is more difficult to block, opponents say, because it is enforced by private lawsuits, not state government officials who are typically the defendants in federal constitutional challenges.
[Fucking clever. Evil as hell, but clever.]
