Originally published at: Department of Justice sues Texas over abortion ban | Boing Boing
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Now we’re talking!
[cue the Libertarians who’ll suddenly start whinging about “states’ rahts” and conservatives crying about Biden’s over-reach and tyranny.]
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The Texas Taliban & Y’all Queda can go…
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“The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.”
― Henry Kissinger
The FDC has been hopelessly corrupt for a long time.
And just why TF is Henry the K still alive?
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… fuck themselves?
God doesn’t want him, and the Devil doesn’t trust him; plus, only the good die young.
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Shadow docket this; Supreme Assholes.
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Gods, I hope this works. I was reading about new Republican strategies to try to create total state control over gun issues by allowing citizens to sue law enforcement departments for aiding or coordinating with federal law enforcement in ways that people feel have “infringed on their 2nd amendment rights,” so apparently this is their new strategy for… everything. Missouri actually passed a law and others are looking to imitate both that and this anti-abortion law. It’s such an insane strategy, as the laws themselves have awful consequences but also so obviously are going to have broad, unpredictable side-effects that make them even worse.
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Soooo, I guess we’re not doing “tort reform” anymore, huh guys?
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More like instituting sharia law: there’s an overarching legal “principal” (guns good, not-white-men bad), but interpretation and enforcement is left up to 50 regional warlords.
It’s the Christian dominionists realizing it’s now or never…
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Disclaimer: Not remotely involved in the legal profession and im quite sure this scheme has been proposed by someone far wiser than me. so just spitballing here (TDLR, Setting up a Shell Company to be then sued by a friendly snitch):
The Supremes ruling came down to an issue of standing,right? no injured party was identified, and therefore the majority passed it along.
So in order to constitutionally challenge this law, the issue is that some unfortunate soul now has to actually violate it, have someone snitch, and subject themselves to possible financial ruin. Then that person will have the necessary standing to sue the state, throw themselves into the public limelight and have their fucking name enshrined in law as a cultural shuttlecock for the next 50 years. Sounds like a truly epic nightmare of hell.
But how about this:
After reading the law it seems intentionaly broad in terms of a) who can be sued for aiding and abetting the abortion and b) whether the abortion actually has to have been performed, or if merely an intent to violate the law is enough to get sued by the third party.
In Section 171.208 the law discusses who can be sued under this law. In addition to specifically mentioning anyone who performs the abortion, it also states that anyone who “2)Knowingly engages in conduct that aids or abets the performance or inducement of an abortion” can also face the same civil penalty.
Here is my suggestion:
Set up an LLC in some real nasty Texas county. The kind of county that is just salivating at the shot to carry out this law. The LLC will be named “The Roe Express.” The stated mission of this business will be to “knowingly aid and abet the performance of, any and all, abortions past the documentation of a fetal heartbeat, and up to viability of a fetus. This mission will be accomplished through the procurement and provision of transportation to any woman seeking to terminate her pregnancy in accordance with Roe v. Wade”
Once the LLC is established, use the Texas law to then seek civil damages against your own company (or have your local chapter of the ACLU file it).
Then have your LLC sue the state of Texas for violating your constitutional rights. This would serve two purposes: 1) establish a plaintiff for the Supreme Court battle that would not subject a private individual to the inevitable relentless media fuckstorm
2) circumvent any potential financial losses for the test subject because any monies won by the “civil snitch” would be returned to them
I havent the foggiest clue if this is a workable legal manuever. But why wait around for someone to get fucked over by this law, while the women of Texas have to live in fear for exercising their constiutional rights?
Pro-Actively pro-choice!!
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By their public statements, I’d say Lyft has already voluteered to be sued. Great publicity in the more liberal parts of the country.
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Merrick Garland leading this is interesting, as he should have been on the Supreme Court to prevent this kind of bullshit from getting this far in the first place.
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Surely the Justice Department suing means it will eventually end up at the supreme court, making your scheme unnecessary?
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From what I understand (a few MSM stories on the topic that plopped into my news feed), the Federal suit isn’t a slam dunk by any means and relies on some novel arguments of their own in challenging the law.
I guess it really all depends on how much of a stomach the conservatives on the court have, and whether they believe that the time is right to pull the trigger on undoing Roe. In that case, they can continue to hide behind their “standing” ruling with the Feds’ case too.
I somewhat naively hold out hope that at the end of the day, if indeed someone has to get sued under this law for it to be challenged, that at least one of the 5 conservatives will realize that turning law enforcement over to private, 3rd party civil lawsuits is probably not in their long term idealogical interests.
But who knows, shit is wacky out there. I could easily see them pulling the old Scalia-Bush v.Gore routine (“This is our ruling. BUT! in any future case before the court, please pretend that we did not rule on it”). Keep the law intact while also shielding the court from being hamstrung to it as precedent. For you see, abortion is such a contentious and specific issue, the whole “civil snitch” thing only applies to this one particular law. Easy peasy!
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