🧵 The way Texas's anti-choice law actually works in practice is so diabolical and dystopian...

[Nevilledog]

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The way Texas's anti-choice law actually works in practice is so diabolical and dystopian that it almost sounds fake. A Rube Goldberg machine of state-sanctioned misogyny. A quick thread on what the Supreme Court allowed to take effect last night: capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/87R/bi…
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Under SB8, any random person can sue anyone who "aids and abets" abortion. This includes *paying for* abortion, and *using insurance*. So, if you give a friend money, or file an insurance claim, or are an insurance company who pays a claim, you might be a target.
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If an anti-choice vigilante wins, they get to collect a statutory $10,000 bounty AND their attorney's fees. If a doctor or clinic or anyone accused of "aiding or abetting" somehow wins, they get...nothing, and DON'T get attorney's fees reimbursed. Their legal costs are their own.
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SB8 also allows lawsuits against people who INTEND to perform abortion or "aid or abet" abortion. This is an open invitation to anti-choice activists to file lawsuits against everyone they don't like and try to drown them in frivolous litigation.
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The law also applies to *each individual abortion* performed. Doctors and clinics who regularly provide abortion care are now staring down the possibility of paying $10,000 plus costs and fees every time they do their jobs.
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This part is insane: People can bring suits up to FOUR YEARS later. And if a court decision briefly protects the right to abortion and then gets overruled, defendants can't rely on that, EVEN IF the decision was good law at the time. Perpetual threat of devastating liability.
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Where do these get filed? One option for vigilante claimants is the county where they live, regardless of where the alleged conduct took place. The law PROHIBITS transfers without the consent of all parties. If you live in El Paso and get sued in, like, Galveston, tough shit.
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SB8 also casually makes it so that anyone who tries to prevent Texas from enforcing any current or future anti-choice laws is required to pay the other side's attorney's fees if they lose. Again, the goal is to make defending abortion rights prohibitively expensive in perpetuity.
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And just to be safe, the law specifies that any court ruling that any part of SB8 is unconstitutional is temporary and can be overruled as soon as a friendlier court comes along. Utterly deranged, but also, what the conservative legal movement has been working for for decades.
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Texas Republicans DID carve out an exception: If a would-be claimant is the same person who impregnated a woman via rape or incest, they CAN'T sue to stop the survivor from having an abortion. (They can still bring vigilante suits over other abortions, though, don't worry.)
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There are little things, too: Texas already requires women seeking abortion to undergo a sonogram and hear an "explanation" of the sonogram images, with only a few exceptions. SB8 changes references to the "fetus" on the paperwork the patient must sign to "unborn child."
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[Hugh_Lebowski]

1. Our side should start suing the gas stations near the woman's home

Make them prove they didn't 'aid and abet' by selling the woman gasoline.

Esp. the big oil companies franchises ... Shell, Conoco, Exxon, Chevron stations.

Demand they provide all the store receipts from the time period to prove they didn't sell gas to the woman, or anyone she may've gotten a ride from.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. Thanks for all these details! They make me so angry that I feel rather like doing something illegal.

I won't, of course.

But MY GOD.

[drmeow]

20. As I posted on FB

If lawmakers regulated men's bodies the way they regulate women's bodies, someone would have gone postal LONG before now!

I have no intention of doing anything violent or illegal but I do wish curses and voodoo dolls actually worked I'd focus on some very, very specific body parts!

[Demovictory9]

3. Ugh

[Irish_Dem]

4. The defendant pays $10,000 to the plaintiff?

It is so unbelievable I have to make sure I am understanding this correctly.

[Nevilledog]

7. Here are the excerpts

[Irish_Dem]

8. So the plaintiff claims/wins statutory damages and gets $10K in compensation.

10K is paid by the defendant. Even if the plaintiff is a complete stranger and has no damages.

Thanks, I am trying to wrap my head around this.

[Nevilledog]

12. And the defendant has to pay the plaintiff's attorney fees.

[Irish_Dem]

14. Jeeze. But if the defendant wins, no one pays their attorney fees?

They are out the legal fees.

[Nevilledog]

15. Yup.

[Irish_Dem]

16. Thanks for the information! Unbelievable.

I couldn't believe what I was reading and thought at first the state was paying the 10K like a bounty.

[Nevilledog]

17. You gotta have the huge financial penalty so you can totally destroy someone.

[Irish_Dem]

18. Yep. Mean, cruel, vindictive.

[paleotn]

5. Can we give Tejas back to Mexico?

Please, please?!

[CaliforniaPeggy]

6. Alas, I really don't think Mexico wants them either. And who can blame them? n/t

[modrepub]

9. Couldn't You Do The Same for Gun Sales?

If this works, why couldn't gun control be designed to work the same way?

[hurple]

10. How about...

Liberals start going to the website where you report possible abortion-prone people and begin filling in the form for, literally, every conservative, rethuglican female in the state, starting with the senior-most female in the legislature and working their way down to the grade-school age kids of their neighborhood rethuglican?

[2naSalit]

19. You don't have to be child bearing age to be...

Accused of helping. Anyone can be reported.

[NightWatcher]

11. Change the signs at the border to read "Welcome to Gilead" and put up a big ol cross

It's dystopian and punitive (and really in line with the Taliban. Lets hope they never get together)

[Tadpole Raisin]

13. Diabolical is the right word - OMG!!!

So if they don’t directly go after the woman they believe they are circumventing Roe and getting the same result?

Legal eagles here, besides the direct challenge of this law what other challenges could be made?

1984 is here and now!!

[dalton99a]

21. A must read

[DSandra]

22. I hope that anyone to the left of independent who still doesn't believe that...

Republicans are pure evil now do.