Allowing some to police others reverses civil rights
Everywhere you look, people seem to be losing rights. Texas’ Senate Bill 8, which its legislators passed last year, was perhaps the most shocking example of this anti-rights wave. It’s one of the most severe restrictions on abortion rights in the United States, banning abortions after six weeks, before many know they are pregnant, and its effects are already being felt throughout the state.
But it’s all the more alarming for its unique method of enforcement.
Rather than being enforced by the state government, which would be a clear violation of Roe v. Wade, the law gives Texas residents the right to sue those who aid or assist an abortion. Although this “vigilante” provision is described as a way to work around the Roe precedent, another way of thinking about it is as a new form of social citizenship in America.
S.B. 8′s vigilante provision is not just about finding a new way to reduce women’s rights, but also about creating new rights, or a superordinate category of citizenship, for men. That new status is achieved through the act of policing.
https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/comment-allowing-some-to-police-others-reverses-civil-rights/
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