Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2023/03/13/texas-man-sues-women-who-told-ex-wife-how-to-get-abortion-pills.html
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The party of limited government and enabling truly shitty ex’s. Hope they get voted into oblivion.
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This is a stirring film, highly recommended. But in today’s climate of surveillance and vigilante lawsuits, I wonder if such a network is possible, no matter how courageous the women involved.
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I am not an expert, but wonder if WhatsApp and such would be a start for communications.
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Unforeseen consequences galore.
I don’t know that there were many who didn’t know exactly how this would turn out. Texas republicans just did not care.
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Presumably once the Texans have finished with the abortion pill company they will go after gin distillers and coat hanger manufacturers.
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No matter the consequences, it sounds like that woman really dodged a bullet not having that guy’s baby.
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the party of limited government, personal liberty, and tort reform.
i can’t think of a think of a single tenet they have stuck by in their race towards fascism. oh. other than white supremacy i mean
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and so it begins/ continues.
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We don’t know if it was “his” baby (my feeling is that it’s mostly her baby, given that she’s the one doing all the life-threatening and uncomfortable work to make it happen; if he were to step up and carry the baby to term, I might feel differently). The article doesn’t say anything about the timeline. Was she still with him when her friends helped her obtain an abortion? Was she pregnant before she left him and had the abortion afterwards? Or is he just reaching back to torment a woman that left him years before?
In the first two cases, he might have fathered the child (but then again he might not). In the third case, that’s less likely (but possible).
In any case, it makes no difference because, as I understand it, Texas law now empowers absolutely anyone who feels like it to sue the Evil Woman. He could be the father, he could be a random neighbor or a local crossing guard who happened to notice that she looked a bit preggers one day and not so much the next. All are equal in the eyes of the law.
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You make a good point: all she has to do is claim that she doesn’t know who the biological father was, and his case (were it to be considered by a rational, ethical judge) would be moot.
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I bet he was a total jerk about any kind of birth control too.
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First, I don’t think that’s the way it works in Texas; I believe the law is very specifically written to allow anyone to bring a case if they feel like it. A judge, whatever his personal feelings, is more or less compelled to acknowledge that that is, in fact, the law. Unfortunately.
Second, saying that if the man is not the biological father, he shouldn’t have a claim seems to imply that if he is the biological father, than he has a claim that needs to be considered.
And I don’t really buy that. Simply ejaculating inside a woman is not, for most men, a huge expenditure of effort or something that requires tremendous levels of talent, expertise or emotional investment. It may be more or less easy for different individuals, but, by and large, it’s in no way comparable with the intense work, discomfort and personal risk of carrying a child-to-be for nine months and then delivering it. Any legal system that sees these two contributions as equivalent and endows the father with equal rights over the as-yet-not-a-child, including the right to demand that the woman should perform this particular difficult and dangerous service, is (to my mind) insane.
The state of Texas, however, does not agree.
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Your much more considered response is, absolutely, the right one. I was being flippant, and this isn’t a time for flippancy anymore.
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Probably many more legal systems than just Texas
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I have faith that people will figure that out… It might be more difficult, given our surveillance society, but it’s not nearly as totalizing as people think - especially since so much of it is “opt in”…
Women getting hurt and even dying is certainly a feature of their horrible anti-choice, anti-woman laws here…
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And, presumably, manufacturers and sellers of male prophylactics…
After all, men are 50% responsible, it takes two to tango, etc, etc
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Who paid for the phone on which she got the text messages? If it’s Silva, does that constitute aiding and abetting her abortion? Countersue him for $1 million.
If she drove to get the pills, who paid for the car? If it’s Silva, countersue.
If she used money obtained from a joint bank account with Silva to pay for the pills, countersue.
If Silva is responsible in any way, shape, or form for any of the factors that helped her get the pills, countersue.
If someone does countersue Silva and win, would anyone and everyone be able to sue him? I’m not a lawyer but the Wikipedia article on res judicata (which seems like the civil equivalent of double jeopardy) says that the matter can’t be relitigated between the same parties. If someone else wanted to sue him under this law, would that work?
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The advent of relatively/comparably safe drugs for this purpose certainly does change the situation. Back alley procedures will be safer than those of yesteryear.
Acquisition & distibution being hella easier than physical procedures, chances of these idiots preventing abortions is as good as the chances of winning the other war on drugs, a war that isn’t going well for the aggressors.
Edit to add; even if the goal is criminalizing women and not preventing abortion, obviously
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