Fogbow

Citizens, Not the State, Will Enforce New Abortion Law in Texas
The measure bans abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy. And it effectively deputizes ordinary citizens to sue people involved in the process.

By Sabrina Tavernise
July 9, 2021 Updated 10:30 a.m. ET

People across the country may soon be able to sue abortion clinics, doctors and anyone helping a woman get an abortion in Texas, under a new state law that contains a legal innovation with broad implications for the American court system.

The provision passed the Texas State Legislature this spring as part of a bill that bans abortion after a doctor detects a fetal heartbeat, usually at about six weeks of pregnancy. Many states have passed such bans, but the law in Texas is different.

Ordinarily, enforcement would be up to government officials, and if clinics wanted to challenge the law’s constitutionality, they would sue those officials in making their case. But the law in Texas prohibits officials from enforcing it. Instead, it takes the opposite approach, effectively deputizing ordinary citizens — including from outside Texas — to sue clinics and others who violate the law. It awards them at least $10,000 per illegal abortion if they are successful.

“It’s completely inverting the legal system,” said Stephen Vladeck, a constitutional law professor at the University of Texas at Austin. “It says the state is not going to be the one to enforce this law. Your neighbors are.”

The result is a law that is extremely difficult to challenge before it takes effect on Sept. 1, because it is hard to know whom to sue to block it, and lawyers for clinics are now wrestling with what to do about it. Six-week bans in other states have all been blocked as they make their way through the court system.


https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/09/us/a ... texas.html

neeneko wrote: ↑Fri Jul 09, 2021 1:08 pm I wonder how HIPAA might interact with this law since it requires the plaintiff to have rather specific medical information about someone.

neeneko wrote: ↑Fri Jul 09, 2021 1:08 pm I wonder how HIPAA might interact with this law since it requires the plaintiff to have rather specific medical information about someone.

zekeb wrote: ↑Fri Jul 09, 2021 1:12 pm Knowing how these people operate, it wouldn't surprise me if a pregnant woman has an abortion and gives the plaintiff every last detail.

RVInit wrote: ↑Fri Jul 09, 2021 1:59 pm Part of me wants to believe that this wouldn't survive SCOTUS (standing?).

LM K wrote: ↑Fri Jul 09, 2021 2:36 pmThis will motivate additional violence against healthcare professionals and clinics.

It's been only in the last few decades that doctors have even been able to detect this flutter at six weeks, thanks to the use of more-sophisticated ultrasound technologies, Aftab said. Previously, the technology wasn't advanced enough to detect the flutter that early on in pregnancy.

Although a lot of weight seems to be put on the detection of this flutter, "by no means does it translate to viability of the heart" or viability of the pregnancy, Aftab said.

The heart still has a lot of development to undergo before it is fully formed. Indeed, the entire first trimester of pregnancy is a time of "organogenesis," or the formation of organs, Aftab said.

After the detection of the flutter at six weeks, the heart muscle continues to develop over the next four to six weeks, undergoing the folding and bending that needs to happen for the heart to take its final shape, Aftab said.

"A lot of the heart development is still ongoing" during the first trimester, she said.

Tiredretiredlawyer wrote: ↑Fri Jul 09, 2021 4:19 pm Calling it a "heartbeat" is the first wrong. There is no heartbeat there until there is a heart.

And so fucking what if there is a "heartbeat"! Is the embryo/fetus viable? R u willing to adopt said embryo/fetus and take on all medical expenses you don't want the government to provide?

Lawsuit targets Texas abortion law deputizing citizens to enforce six-week ban

Abortion rights advocates and providers filed a federal lawsuit in Texas on Tuesday seeking to block a new state law empowering individuals to sue anyone assisting a woman with getting an abortion, including those who provide financial help or drive a pregnant patient to a clinic.

A dozen states have passed laws banning abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy. But the Texas law, set to take effect in September, goes further by incentivizing private citizens to help enforce the ban — awarding them at least $10,000 if their court challenges are successful. Even religious leaders who counsel a pregnant woman considering an abortion could be liable, according to the lawsuit filed in Austin by the Center for Reproductive Rights, Planned Parenthood and the ACLU on behalf of several other groups.

Proponents of the measure, which had the backing of the Republican governor, cheered passage of the “heartbeat bill” as a landmark victory.

But abortion providers say the law, known as S.B. 8, is unconstitutional and will subject them to endless lawsuits, shut down clinics and reduce services — and they say it will isolate abortion patients by undermining support networks for pregnant women.

“The state has put a bounty on the head of any person or entity who so much as gives a patient money for an abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, before most people know they are pregnant,” Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights said in a statement. “Worse, it will intimidate loved ones from providing support for fear of being sued.”

Texas governor signs abortion bill banning procedure as early as six weeks into pregnancy

Although abortion patients themselves cannot be sued under the Texas law, a controlling parent, disapproving neighbor or abusive spouse could target the woman’s doctor in court to try to stop the abortion.

Texas Can Ban Common Form of Second-Trimester Abortion, Appeals Court Rules
The lower court “committed numerous, reversible legal and factual errors,” according to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

By Azi Paybarah
Published Aug. 18, 2021
Updated Aug. 19, 2021, 12:04 a.m. ET

A federal appeals court on Wednesday upheld a Texas law banning the most common form of second-trimester abortion, ruling that a lower court had erred in finding that the law imposed “an undue burden on a large fraction of women.”

At issue is a Texas law that was passed in 2017 but has not yet been in effect because of legal battles. The law, known as Senate Bill 8, prohibits a dilation-and-evacuation abortion method and requires doctors to use alternative abortion methods, according to Wednesday’s decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

A Federal District Court judge had found that the 2017 law “imposes an undue burden on a large fraction of women” because it “amounted to a ban on all D&E abortions.”

That interpretation is wrong, the appeals court said on Wednesday. Records show that “doctors can safely perform D&Es and comply with SB8 using methods that are already in widespread use,” according to Wednesday’s ruling.

The lower court “committed numerous, reversible legal and factual errors,” according to the decision on Wednesday.

“Accordingly,” it continued, “we VACATE the district court’s permanent injunction.”



https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/18/us/a ... uling.html

Slim Cognito wrote: ↑Wed Sep 01, 2021 1:29 pm I still don't get how someone, other than possibly the father, would have standing to sue.

Slim Cognito wrote: ↑Wed Sep 01, 2021 1:29 pm I still don't get how someone, other than possibly the father, would have standing to sue.

In the United States, a private attorney general is an informal term for a private attorney who brings a lawsuit considered to be in the public interest, i.e., benefiting the general public and not just the plaintiff, on behalf of a citizen or group of citizens. The attorney may, at the equitable discretion of the court, be entitled to recover attorney's fees if he or she prevails. The rationale behind this principle is to provide extra incentive to private attorneys to pursue suits that may be of benefit to society at large.