Test of the Texas Heartbeat Law
The Wall Street Journal reports Texas Doctor Who Performed Abortion Is Sued in Test of New Law
The Texas Heartbeat Act bans abortions after “cardiac activity” can be detected, usually around six weeks of gestation, and it deputizes private citizens to sue anyone they believe may have aided such a procedure and collect $10,000. It went into effect Sept. 1.
Alan Braid, a San Antonio physician, said in a Washington Post opinion essay Saturday that he had performed an abortion in defiance of the law, widely known as SB 8, earlier this month.
A former Arkansas lawyer, Oscar Stilley, who said he is on home confinement serving time after a tax-fraud conviction, filed a civil complaint against the doctor Monday in Bexar County District Court. He said he decided to sue the doctor after he read about the case early Monday morning and wanted to test the Texas law, which doesn’t require plaintiffs to be state residents.
In a separate lawsuit, Felipe N. Gomez, an Illinois resident who is described in his filing as a “pro choice plaintiff,” filed a complaint Monday morning in Bexar County. While the complaint is against Dr. Braid, it says Mr. Gomez believes the Texas law to be illegal and asks a court to strike it down. He said that he wasn’t interested in collecting any money.
“I’m against having someone tell me I have to get a shot or wear a mask and the same people who agree with me on that—the GOP—tell people what they can do with their bodies on the other hand,” Mr. Gomez said. “It’s inconsistent.”
New Roe v. Wade Poll
In a new poll by highly respected pollster Monmouth University, Most say leave Roe v. Wade as is.
Key aspects of the new Texas law restricting access to abortions receive a thumbs down from a broad majority of Americans, especially the so-called “bounty” payment provision. The latest Monmouth (“Mon-muth”) University Poll also finds public approval of the U.S. Supreme Court has dipped in the past five years while most Americans support keeping access to abortion legal and do not want the nation’s highest court to revisit the Roe v. Wade decision.
A majority of the public (54%) disagrees with the Supreme Court allowing the Texas law that effectively bans abortions after six weeks to go into effect. Another 39% of Americans agree with the court. Most Democrats (73%) disagree with the decision while most Republicans (62%) agree. Democrats (77%) and independents (61%) are more likely than Republicans (47%) to say they have heard a lot about this new law.
Two unique provisions of the Texas law are broadly opposed by the public. Seven in ten Americans (70%) disapprove of allowing private citizens to use lawsuits to enforce this law rather than having government prosecutors handle these cases. Additionally, 8 in 10 Americans (81%) disapprove of giving $10,000 to private citizens who successfully file suits against those who perform or assist a woman with getting an abortion.
Whether one is for or against abortion, the Texas law is beyond idiotic. Allowing people who were not injured in any way to sue for damages when there are no damages is clearly unconstitutional.
It’s also stupid.
The in your face Texas legislation is not going to do the GOP any good in the 2022 midterms. It offends a majority of women and a majority of independents.
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Mish
Soon the Democrats will write parallel legislation that will allow these silly lawsuits in cases of gun violence. Once again we will see the true cost of “owning the libs.”
The law will be decided in the Supreme Court as the system
was set up to do to resolve from a legal point of view changes in society. It
probably will make all the zealots on both sides very unhappy so f__k them. Hopefully
the Court will come up with workable guidelines and we can go forward.
Realistically, I love that they do. I hate slavery and am glad it was decided politically.
I also hate abortion. I just wish the law was on the side of life more often.
The issue for conservatives (like myself), is that it’s not just about God judging a person when they die. It’s about the present. We don’t allow robbery to be legal because “God will judge them one day”. We also don’t allow homicide to be legal “because God will judge them one day.”
On the contrary, we don’t allow those things to be legal because God also cares about the present situation of all of his Creation. Slavery is the violation of the human rights of oppressed people groups (not just blacks). Homicide is the violation of the rights of the one murdered. Robbery is the violation of human rights of the one being dispossessed of property.
These are moral issues that ultimately provide a legal basis for human rights.
Abortion is the same: Human rights also should apply to the unborn. The legality of abortion is always a question of who has more human rights, the woman or the baby? Generally, the law seeks to answer that question by taking the road of the path that violates the least number of rights. For instance, taxation offers the government the ability to build a road but also by taking money from me to do so. The benefit is worth it to me because I benefit also.
Conservatives, like me, argue that a woman’s right not to be pregnant are not more important that the right of the baby to live. It’s hard to argue for abortion from a purely moral perspective since it’s obvious a right to life is the highest right a human has. Therefore the logic of those in support of abortion argue that the fetus isnt’ alive until such and such week and that abortion should be allowed. There is no consistency in these arguments because of the failure to answer the question of “what is life”?
Some thoughts and musings of a conservative here.
have the landmark Roe v. Wade decision guaranteeing a woman’s right to
an abortion overturned. Mississippi is “asking the high court to uphold its ban on most abortions after the 15th
week of pregnancy. The state has told the court it should overrule Roe
and the 1992 decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey that prevent states
from banning abortion before viability, the point at which a fetus can
survive outside the womb, around 24 weeks of pregnancy.”
3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst 4 they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. 5 Nown the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” 6 This they said to test him that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 7 And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first tothrow a stone at her.” 8 And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. 9 But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. 10 Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no onecondemned you?” 11 She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said,“Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”
12Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will notwalk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” 13 So the Pharisees said to him, “You are bearing witness about yourself; your testimony is not true.” 14 Jesus answered, “Even if I do bear witnessabout myself, my testimony is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going, but you do not know where I come from or where I am going. 15 You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one.