Ancillary Post No. 3
As a non-lawyer I fail to understand this explanation of the reputed tactical brilliance behind the new, blatantly unconstitutional, Texas anti-abortion law. We seem to be told that the law does not put the State in the role of agent whom an aggrieved party could sue for relief. The reasons for that are a) that the pregnant woman cannot be charged for having the abortion; b) that the actors bringing any suit against any party aiding the woman in her decision to abort her pregnancy will be private citizens, not the State; c) that the suit will be civil only, not criminal; d) that until such a suit is filed there is no action, therefore no complaint or injury, and therefore no standing for a plaintiff.
But that tactic of unleashing private “bounty-hunters” to go after those persons who in any way assist in an “unlawful abortion” is a State action known as legislation. And that State action is built atop the State action of unconstitutionally and unlawfully defining as “unlawful abortion” any abortion taking place after the six-week mark of pregnancy (purportedly determined by the presence of a “fetal heartbeat”). That definition of unlawful abortion brazenly defies Roe v. Wade and Casey v. Planned Parenthood. The bounty-hunters have by the State been deputized as a sort of posse comitatus or, perhaps in this case, posse status, to enforce an unconstitutional and unlawful statute of the State.
Therefore, a) the bounty-hunting statute is, or should readily be found to be, unlawful, and it is the State that acted to legislate the statute; b) any women’s health clinic or obstetrician in the State of Texas should have standing to sue for the law to be overturned and for injunctive relief while the suit plays out; the legislation wantonly intends to place, and does in fact place, insurmountable financial constraints on their continued professional, lawful, and State Board-regulated practice of public health services; and c) the underlying ban on any abortion after the six-week mark should be similarly treated. The premise of the “ingenious mechanism” fails Roe and Casey tests. There is no lawful basis for the brilliant mechanism of the law.
I do not understand how this unsupported house of cards remains standing. But then, I am not a lawyer. I am only a citizen, and as such I have been trained only to recognize specious, pretextual, arrogantly corrupt political talk and action when it hits me.
And now it appears that the Supreme Court will shortly hear the suits filed to settle the question of jurisdiction, reportedly without consideration of constitutionality or injunctive relief? We shall see.
The Long Clasp 