What Texas's abortion law has in common with the Fugitive Slave Act

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/11/01/texas-abortion-law-history-rights-suppressed/

No paywall
https://archive.ph/gMxYd

The Supreme Court on Monday is hearing challenges to Texas’s antiabortion law, S.B. 8 — a measure that not only bans abortion after six weeks but allows any private party to sue anyone who aids or abets the procurement of an abortion — knowingly or unwittingly. By allowing private citizens to go after doctors, nurses, ride-share drivers and others, Texas aims to cast a deep pall of uncertainty and fear around the constitutionally sanctioned procedure.

Texas’s law has been described as “unprecedented” and “inventive,” as if the state’s legislature had broken new ground by granting private citizens the legal power to stifle constitutional rights. But these labels miss important historical context: Throughout American history, laws have been enacted to license private parties to suppress the constitutional rights of others by filing a lawsuit and bringing the weight of the state to bear on rights-holders. Such measures have been repeatedly used to keep down subordinated groups. They are far from marginal and their sheer frequency suggests S.B. 8 is no outlier but an indication that our Constitution has an Achilles’ heel when it comes to individual rights.

S.B. 8 may tap into people’s desire to think they are vigilantes, boldly enforcing their morality in defiance of Supreme Court precedent. But vigilantes typically don’t rely on the legal system to achieve their goals (though local laws may shield them from punishment).

A more precise early historical analogue than vigilantism of the sort practiced by the Ku Klux Klan and its ilk would be the two infamous Fugitive Slave Acts passed by Congress in 1793 and 1850. These undercut Black citizens’ Fifth Amendment right to due process and the habeas corpus right to challenge government deprivations of liberty. Under these acts, enslavers could hire agents to search for people who had escaped to free states from slavery; they could then turn to the courts — or later to “commissioners,” appointed by federal judges — to condone the rendition back south of their “property.” (They could also turn to the courts as a first step before a seizure.)

*snip*

[TreasonousBastard]

1. I don't buy it. The fugitve slave acts were much worse because...

they assumed slaves were property. Which they were at that time. And no way out no matter where in the States they tried to hide.

Under the current law, women aren't considered property-- just treated as if they are as long as they stay in Texas.

Neither situation is in any way right, of course, but for completely different reasons.