Texas Supreme Court Says State Immune in Abortion Ban Suits

[Ohio Joe]

The Texas Supreme Court shut down a legal challenge to the state’s restrictive abortion law, ruling that clinics and women’s-rights advocates can’t sue state medical-licensing officials because they don’t enforce the law.

That leaves abortion advocates without anyone to pro-actively challenge to stop the law, which lets individuals sue anyone who “aids or abets” an abortion once fetal cardiac activity is detected -- usually around six weeks of pregnancy.

Clinics and women’s rights advocates have struggled to figure out who to sue, because lawmakers forbade state officials from enforcing the Texas ban. Instead, individuals enforce the statute by being allowed to sue and collect as much as $10,000 if successful.

Under the law, doctors, clinic workers, friends and even Uber drivers could be sued for helping a woman end an unwanted pregnancy past the cutoff date. The plaintiffs don’t need any connection to the banned abortion and can live anywhere in the U.S.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/texas-supreme-court-says-state-immune-in-abortion-ban-suits/ar-AAUWsig?ocid=msedgntp

The right wing war on women continues.

[RKP5637]

1. That's probably not the end we'll see of this damn GOP tactic being used. I think Hitler liked

informants too. Texas GOP seems to really love them. Too bad Texas is always being dragged down by the GOP, and Florida is trying to catch up with Texas with Governor Floridaman DeSantis.

[atreides1]

5. I'm sorry

You can't hold a political party completely responsible...the religious nut bags, the misogynists, and conservative women who are subservient to men, all play a bigger part then the GOP!

It's not just the party, it's the people...

[RKP5637]

8. Yes, very true!!! n/t

[Spider Jerusalem]

9. Republicans are the party of all those people. so you can in fact hold them responsible (n/t)

[bucolic_frolic]

2. Tyranny without a tyrant! War on women, war on neighbors, war on voting, war on courts

A law cannot be challenged???? Seriously? That's not democracy. That's dictatorship! That's tyranny without a tyrant.

[dalton99a]

3. Kick

[usajumpedtheshark]

4. This country is going downhill fast.

Only a matter of time until they pass a bill that allows anyone to sue anybody they suspect of voting for democrats.

[cojoel]

6. The enforcement uses the courts

The courts are operated by the states. Therefore, government power is being used to enforce the law.

When racial covenants were banned in the 1940s, it was done by prohibiting the use of government courts to enforce them. Thus it is perfectly reasonable to prohibit the courts from enforcing these abortion bans too, and there would be no way to sue to collect a reward.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

7. Texas Supreme Court deals final blow to federal abortion law challenge

Abortions in Texas after six weeks are in effect banned in Texas. Roe v. Wade is no longer the law in Texas. The fate of Roe v. Wade and control of the SCOTUS was on the ballot in 2016. Thank you, Jill Stein and Susan Sarandon for helping to overturn Roe

Link to tweet

The Texas Supreme Court dealt a final blow to abortion providers’ federal challenge to the state’s latest abortion restrictions Friday.

The court ruled that state medical licensing officials do not have authority to enforce the law, which bans abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy. This was the last, narrowly cracked window that abortion providers had left to challenge the law after the U.S. Supreme Court decimated their case in a December ruling.

The law has a unique private-enforcement mechanism that empowers private citizens to sue anyone who, in the law’s language, “aids or abets” an abortion after fetal cardiac activity is detected, usually around six weeks of pregnancy.