Strict Texas abortion law goes into effect after SCOTUS inaction

[Syt]

https://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSKBN2FX2MC

Texas six-week abortion ban takes effect

(Reuters) - A Texas ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy took effect early Wednesday morning after the U.S. Supreme Court did not act on an emergency request by abortion rights groups to block the law enabling the ban.

Barring a later ruling by the court, its inaction by midnight on the groups' request for an injunction will allow the ban litigation continues in the groups' lawsuit challenging its constitutionality.

Abortion rights groups say 85%-90% of abortions in Texas are obtained after six weeks of pregnancy, meaning the law would most likely force many clinics to close.

Such a ban has never been permitted in any state since the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that legalized abortion nationwide, in 1973, they said.

Planned Parenthood and other women's health providers, doctors, and clergy members challenged the law in federal court in Austin in July, contending it violated the constitutional right to an abortion.

The law, signed on May 19, is unusual in that it gives private citizens the power to enforce it by enabling them to sue abortion providers and anyone who "aids or abets" an abortion after six weeks. Citizens who win such lawsuits would be entitled to at least $10,000.

Abortion providers say the law could lead to hundreds of costly lawsuits that would be logistically difficult to defend.

In a legal filing, Texas officials told the justices to reject the abortion providers' request, saying that the law "may never be enforced against them by anyone."

A court could still put the ban on hold, and no court has yet ruled on its constitutionality, Stephen Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law, said in a tweet.

"Despite what some will say, this isn't the 'end' of Roe," he said.

Texas is among of dozen mostly Republican-led states that have enacted "heartbeat" abortion bans, which outlaw the procedure once the rhythmic contracting of fetal cardiac tissue can be detected, often at six weeks - sometimes before a woman realizes she is pregnant.

Courts have blocked such bans.

The state of Mississippi has asked here the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade in a major case the justices agreed to hear over a 2018 law banning abortion after 15 weeks.

The justices will hear arguments in their next term, which begins in October, with a ruling due by the end of June 2022.

The Texas challenge seeks to prevent judges, county clerks and other state entities from enforcing the law.

A federal judge rejected a bid to dismiss the case, prompting an immediate appeal to the New Orleans, Louisiana-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which halted further proceedings.

On Sunday, the 5th Circuit denied a request by the abortion providers to block the law pending the appeal.

Banning abortions past a certain date and then leave it to private citizens to enforce it seems ... odd? I mean you don't ban drugs and then rely on private citizens to drag drug dealers to court.

Is this an attempt to get around the ban of abortion bans by Roe v Wade? "We - as state - allow abortions, but f concerned citizens want to sue they're free to do so?"

[The Brain]

It may be an attempt to drive home what Texas is all about. Insane government.

[Zanza]

Is the $10k prize legally similar to a bounty?
It cannot be for damages suffered by the accuser for sure.

[The Larch]

Awarding money by law sounds indeed like placing a bounty and incentivizing private actors to act as judicial vigilantes. How that can be legal, I don't know.

Besides that aspect, which is already troubling enough, all those "heartbeat laws" are fundamentally unfair, as they place the conditions for abortion in such a draconian way that it basically amounts to forbidding abortion on a technicality.

[Darth Wagtaros]

For small government types, they sure spam out laws like no one's business.  I think they just thrw in hundreds of new laws?  I guess just to sound badass on instagram.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Constitutionally I can see this be a concerning precedent, what is to stop liberal states for example from not outlawing private gun ownership, but creating some weird civil action process where individuals can see anyone who sells guns or owns guns sued under a similar regime?

[Josquius]

We're going to get fucked up "Fetus defender" vigilante groups aren't we.

[Valmy]

We're going to get fucked up "Fetus defender" vigilante groups aren't we.

Maybe. But nobody really knows what the law says. They think it just made post-six week abortions illegal, and that is only to the tiny minority who pay close attention to state politics. The fact that the law doesn't really do that is not widely known. We will see what happens.

[Valmy]

For small government types, they sure spam out laws like no one's business.  I think they just thrw in hundreds of new laws?  I guess just to sound badass on instagram.

They do this because our legislature only meets for a short period on odd numbered years so yeah during that time they have to churn out two years worth of laws. It makes for an insane time where there is a barrage of intense change and then you get two years to figure it all out. By the time everybody adjusts the legislature is getting back together to do it again.

[Barrister]

[deleted]

[Sheilbh]

Constitutionally I can see this be a concerning precedent, what is to stop liberal states for example from not outlawing private gun ownership, but creating some weird civil action process where individuals can see anyone who sells guns or owns guns sued under a similar regime?

Yeah. Especially with what's effectively a bounty - and I feel like the last thing America needs is more civil litagation Especially because from my understanding the people who can be sued are very broad - anyone providing abortion or assisting someone in accessing abortion can incude lots of people. Particularly weird from here because the courts love a floodgates argument and that is one of their biggest fears - but apparently not in the US.

I also just conceptually have a problem with this. My understanding is that because of Roe v Wade, Texas can't ban abortion or they can't enforce that ban/give it effect because that would be the state imposing an undue burden. So the galaxy brain solution is that they create a law making something illegal, that the state cannot constitutionally enforce and instead open it up to individuals to bring private prosecutions who can then claim a reward. I get there are private prosecutions but those are to catch bits where the state fails (or doesn't prioritise). I think allowing states to make crimes that they cannot actually lawfully police is a really dangerous idea - as well as you say, a workaround of more or less anything in the constitution.

[Richard Hakluyt]

It looks to me that a parent could not take their pregnant daughter to a more amenable state, or even give her the funds for a flight to a better state, without risking being descended on by bounty hunters 

[Maximus]

It looks to me that a parent could not take their pregnant daughter to a more amenable state, or even give her the funds for a flight to a better state, without risking being descended on by bounty hunters 

I think that's by design.

[Sheilbh]

It looks to me that a parent could not take their pregnant daughter to a more amenable state, or even give her the funds for a flight to a better state, without risking being descended on by bounty hunters 

Yeah and that reminds me of the tangle Ireland had (and they had some horrifying cases) with their abortion ban and the tens of thousands of women who came to GB every year for an abortion.

[Richard Hakluyt]

It looks to me that a parent could not take their pregnant daughter to a more amenable state, or even give her the funds for a flight to a better state, without risking being descended on by bounty hunters 

I think that's by design.

Yes indeed. Very nasty, very destabilising.