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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsOne tactic to stop abortion bounty hunters from demolishing women's constitutional rights
Link to tweet
Marc E. Elias
@marceelias
"The Texas statute breaks new legal ground, and womens rights defenders must be creative and bold in their counterattack. Any and all viable strategies should be tried."🤔
Opinion | One tactic to stop abortion bounty hunters from demolishing womens constitutional rights
States tried to outsource the trampling of constitutional rights before. That didn't work.
washingtonpost.com
8:19 AM · Sep 5, 2021
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/09/05/one-tactic-stop-bounty-hunters-demolishing-womens-constitutional-rights/
When thinking about Texass nefarious scheme to deprive women of their constitutional right to seek an abortion, I am reminded of the tactics White segregationists used in the years following the Brown v. Board of Education decision. The 1954 ruling prohibited schools from segregating students, so some parents created all White academies. Some states threatened to close public schools for everyone. Blocked from keeping Black students in substandard schools, they sought other means to do the unconstitutional activity.
In the case of Texass antiabortion law, state lawmakers know that Roe v. Wade remains the law of the land, establishing a womans right under the 14th Amendment to control her own reproduction. So they came up with the idea to enlist private citizens to rat out women exercising their constitutional rights. They offered these people a bounty of $10,000. Think of them as hiring every Texas resident (and residents outside the state!) on a contract basis to make abortion services virtually impossible to obtain.
There are many avenues the federal government can do to protect Texas woman. For example, Section 1983 of Title 42 in the U.S. Code provides: Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress. When Texass law forces every abortion provider in the state to shut down, surely there is a deprivation of constitutional rights. They have effectively chilled womens constitutional rights.
What about under color of any statute? Does that not limit Section 1983 to so-called state actors? In fact, there is a well-developed body of law that says private individuals acting in concert with state actors can be sued. The under color phrase does not require that the accused be a public official. That person only needs to be engaged in in joint activity with the state or its agents.
*snip*
onecaliberal
(32,484 posts)Sherman A1
(38,958 posts)I am certainly hopeful that there is a legal rabbit to be pulled out of a hat somewhere to deal with this nonsense. I am also hopeful that Texas and any other state that goes down this path will suffer economically both very harshly and very swiftly.
no_hypocrisy
(45,772 posts)frivolous lawsuits (treble damages, y'all!) should do the trick.
Bring it on!
CTyankee
(63,771 posts)Thanks!
Girard442
(6,059 posts)...and be seen to be aggressively on this.
It's far too late in the game to show up for a knife fight carrying a chessboard.
PortTack
(32,606 posts)sir pball
(4,726 posts)Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States, ... shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if bodily injury results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include the use, attempted use, or threatened use of a dangerous weapon, explosives, or fire, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.
Give one bounty hunter the needle and see who else dares try.
Igel
(35,191 posts)It's against providers. Presumably the rights in question are those of a person seeking an abortion later, after the triggering event.
If a provider pays a fine and decides to exit the business, does that deprive those seeking abortion of their rights?
And if injury results as a result of the provider's going out of the business because the fines are too much, does that trigger this provision?
What if the provider goes out of business as the result of a personal lawsuit involving some other law? Say, they screw up and are sued for malpractice because, pissed off, the former patient wants to shut them down?
Or the provider gets evicted when the landlord sells and title passes to a different landlord? Or the provider simply can't afford the insurance necessary? Or as the result of intensive "investigation" into health and safety practices, employment practices, or parking violations? (If they have nothing to fear, what's the problem, right? Investigate and investigate and investigate. At what point does it become illegal harassment?)
Or the provider just says, "You know, I can make more money in Atlanta doing ob/gyn without the publicity"? Does that mean that the provider deprives future patients of their rights? Surely there's a law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom that says a person can decide to change careers or close their business.
It'll be interesting to see how the arguments are made and where the law is stretched to cover this; or what old law unequivocally already handles this.
Fiendish Thingy
(15,367 posts)This theory is worth testing in court, but Im not optimistic.
Dreampuff
(778 posts)A rapist gets a vote on Banning abortion?
Lonestarblue
(9,880 posts)Black people had the right to vote, but the governments turned a blind eye and encouraged private citizens to enforce their desire to prevent black people from voting and preserve their white supremacy. Those private citizens were the Klan.
Todays abortion stalkers and bounty hunters are a version of the KKK out to prevent women from exercising their rights. Perhaps we could call them the ESCExtremist Stalker Committeeor the FBKForced Birther Klanor maybe the Texas Morality PoliceTMPor perhaps just the Texas Taliban Enforcers.
Im sure the clever people here can come up with some great acronyms!