Norman Alexander
Penultimate Amazing
https://www.theguardian.com/comment...-doctor-abortion-sued-pro-lifers-backpedalingTwo disbarred lawyers sued a Texas doctor who performed an abortion. Flustered ‘pro-lifers’ are backpedaling
Anti-choice groups are embarrassed that their draconian law is being enforced the way it was designed
Dr Alan Braid, an OBGYN based in San Antonio, broke the law on purpose. In an essay published in the Washington Post last Saturday, the doctor announced that he performed an abortion on a woman who was past six weeks of gestation, the limit imposed by Texas’s new abortion ban, SB8.
... Two complaints – both from men living out of state – were filed against Dr Braid on Monday morning. One, a rambling, weird document, comes from a convicted felon and disbarred former attorney named Oscar Stilley, who is serving a prison term on house arrest in Arkansas. That complaint, which Stilley seems to have written himself, makes multiple references to Dr Braid’s conduct regarding “bastards” and his supposed belief in a god referred to by the Hebrew name “Elohim.” Stilley, who has said he does not personally oppose abortion, feels strongly that “if there’s money to be had, it’s going to go in Oscar’s pocket.”
The second lawsuit is from a man named Felipe Gomez of Illinois, another disbarred lawyer, who labels himself “pro-choice plaintiff”, and whose complaint asks only that SB8 be overturned. These test cases, strange and off-putting as they are, now represent the best chance for SB8 to be vacated, and for abortion rights to be returned to Texans – at least for now.
... Interestingly, the anti-choice movement doesn’t seem entirely happy that the lawsuits that enforce the abortion ban they championed are now actually arriving in Texas courts. John Sego, a legislative director of the anti-choice group Texas Right to Life, which supports SB8, expressed displeasure that the law is being enforced – well, exactly the way it was designed.
...It might be that Sego and his anti-choice colleagues are embarrassed to have their interests represented by a plaintiff like Stilley, with his flamboyant feloniousness. Maybe they have realized that the bounty-hunting provision of the law is deeply unpopular, and that the suits are terrible PR for the anti-choice movement.
Oh dear.


