Texas Taliban
September 6, 2021
Donald Trump’s trio of Supreme Court judges came through for him when they gave a pass last week to a Texas anti-abortion law that isn’t just about denying access to a medical procedure. It is about suborning law and order itself, de-federalizing the American Republic, and allowing the state to impose extreme religious beliefs on everyone. Most importantly, it is about the 2022 mid-term elections and beyond.
Technically, the five jurists didn’t approve or adjudicate the law but merely let it slide which allows it to remain on the books and be enforced even though it overtakes the 1973 Roe v Wade abortion precedent. This was pulled off because of its unique enforcement provision: The Texans have replaced state government enforcement involving abortions by allowing ordinary citizens to sue, in a civil court, the abortion seeker, her advisor, friends, or doctor and collect fines of $10,000 or more from each. This meant the state wasn’t on trial, but, as Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, the measure was “a flagrantly unconstitutional law engineered to prohibit women from exercising their constitutional rights and evade judicial scrutiny.”
Another test will come soon when the Supreme Court hears a direct challenge to the federal 1973 law itself and involves Mississippi’s blanket ban on abortion. If upheld, that will remove altogether the 1973 landmark decision that protects a pregnant woman’s liberty to choose to have an abortion in America without excessive government restriction.
As of September 1, anyone can sue in a Texas court any person or organization that advises, enables, or performs an abortion. Enablers could include those who assist a woman to obtain an abortion outside Texas, which casts a chill across the country. There is no limit to the number of those who can be sued, nor is there a ceiling on the $10,000 fine.
In essence, Texas has privatized law and order and delegated it to self-appointed vigilantes or bounty hunters, or religious fanatics. Such a provision could also be added to laws proscribing any behavior. People could be sued for drinking alcohol, smoking, owning illegal guns, hate speech, housing illegal aliens, or being deadbeat dads, adulterers, addicts, truants, homosexuals, or members of unpopular religions. America would become a surveillance society as is Russia, Afghanistan, or regimes in Saudi Arabia, China, or the Salem Massachusetts theocracy of 1692 with its witch trials.
On its face, it is an outrageous joke. But given the nod by the Supreme Court, this is no laughing matter. What we have is Texas frontier justice. This is the American Taliban in a ten-gallon hat.
The Texas legislature did not exempt women who were raped, the victims of incest, or those whose lives would be threatened if they continued their pregnancies. Its passage also defied the will of the people: The majority of Texans support access to abortions. Even 92 percent of anti-abortion supporters believe that incest and rape or a woman’s health are grounds to end a pregnancy.
This law is pure misogyny which why it’s important to note is that two of the five Supreme Court justices who voted to let this law stand were accused of abusing women in their confirmation hearings. In 1990, Justice Clarence Thomas was accused of sexual harassment by Professor Anita Hill, a lawyer who was his subordinate at the time. In 2018, Justice Brett Kavanagh was accused of sexual misconduct by two women and of sexually assaulting Professor Christine Blasey Ford when the two were in high school.
The Republican Wall Street Journal headline described the decision as “Texas’ Abortion Law Blunder” but that’s totally wrong. This was intentional. And recidivist. And party platform. Tag teams of pro-life zealots have been pestering the courts for decades with proposed laws designed to tear down abortion rights for women.
For instance, Democratic Representative Chris Turner in Texas this year implored his Republican colleagues to “just stop passing unconstitutional laws!” He was fed up with a succession of increasingly draconian anti-abortion bills which were passed then opposed in court and appealed in an attempt to get before the Supreme Court eventually. District Court Judge Lee Yeakel, a George W. Bush appointee, said in court that his Austin courtroom had become a “whistlestop” for increasingly extreme anti-abortion laws on their way to the Supreme Court.
But this one slipped through and has blown a gigantic hole in the body politic — only because President Trump swung the Supreme Court to the extreme right by appointing three radicals. The Wall Street Journal further tried to finesse this outrage and wrote that “the Supreme Court was right not to interfere for now, but the statute won’t survive scrutiny on the merits…The law sets an awful precedent that conservatives should hate. Could California allow private citizens to sue individuals for hate speech? Or New York deputize private lawsuits against gun owners?”
As of September 1, Texas has taken away abortion access to women and forced them to travel out of state to obtain one. This has also cast a chill across the country because the law stipulates that individuals can use Texas courts to sue anyone, inside or outside the state, who “aids or abets” an abortion elsewhere and collect $10,000 or more a pop.
House leader Nancy Pelosi is scrambling, along with the Department of Justice, to triage this attack by codifying abortion rights. But this will take months and by then other Republican states will have passed similar laws.
Four of the nine judges, including the Chief Justice, dissented. But most articulate was Justice Sotomayor, a roman Catholic woman and the only Latina member of the Supreme Court. “The Court’s order is stunning. Presented with an application to enjoin a flagrantly unconstitutional law engineered to prohibit women from exercising their constitutional rights and evade judicial scrutiny, a majority of Justices have opted to bury their heads in the sand.”
“The Act immediately prohibits care for at least 85% of Texas abortion patients and will force many abortion clinics to close. The Act is clearly unconstitutional under existing precedents,” she added.
She attacked the Texas Legislature for purposely flouting precedents and bypassing them by giving citizens the right to file lawsuits, thus deputizing “the State’s citizens as bounty hunters, offering them cash prizes for civilly prosecuting their neighbors’ medical procedures.”
This abomination is about politics. With the complicity of five Supreme Court judges, it games the legal system and leaves women in the lurch. This is theocratic fascism, pure and simple, facilitated by a Republican Party that has hoisted abortion to the top of its political agenda in anticipation of 2022 and 2024 elections, then beyond, along with the Big Lie in a cynical bid to wrest back power.
They play with fire and everyone is going to get burned and they don’t care.
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In reality meanwhile Saudis are changing with pounding down the religious that is keeping the country back while Texas is going in the opposite direction.
Are Trump Conservatives that short minded? Do they not realise that this type of law can be turned against them. As is mentioned in passing Blue States can now pass similar laws targeting conservative positions - everything from guns to anti woke comments on twitter.