Texas bans abortion.

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RecoveringYuppy said:
The relevant problem is that private citizens with no relation to the events can file suit.
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In the interests of making this super simple I left out a detail. This may be too nuanced for this tread.

The point that I think is confusing people is the way Texas structured this to avoid judicial oversight. It is structured such that Texas state officials won't be the plaintiffs. Private citizens will be.

This has nothing to do with civil suits being handled properly and normally as civil suits.
 
smartcooky said:
This is the Supremacy Clause that AG Garland was talking about in his annoucement.

Constitution of the United States of America - Article VI

All debts contracted and engagements entered into, before the adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation.

This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.​

This is essentially saying that no state may have State Constitutions or State Laws that contradict the US Constitution or Federal Laws. It also prohibits any state from interfering with the Federal Government's exercise of its Constitutional powers, and from assuming any functions that are exclusively entrusted to the Federal government.

It does not allow the Federal government to review or veto state laws before they take effect. I'm guessing this is the reason why the Garland and the DoJ have waited until now to bring the court action against Texas.
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The good news is that DOJ probably has standing where it would be difficult for many others to establish standing.

The bad news is that because this is a controversy between the United States and a State, the Supreme Court would have original jurisdiction, and taking this to the Supreme Court seems to be what they want.

This is obviously a very carefully planned and constructed law. The news media talks about how crazy it is. And it is. But it is also a very complex legal structure that is designed as a Gordian knot that cannot

The good news is that DOJ could circumvent the issue of reopening the constitutionality of a government interest in preserving life by jumping to the issue of Federal laws in the Supremacy Clause.

The bad news is that probably won't work and the "fetal heartbeat" issue will probably become central. As I have said, that is what Texas wants.

The further bad news is that this law declares itself to be completely severable. Even by word. That means a court decision that relies on a single word could invalidate or interpret that one word while leaving the rest of the law in force.

The further bad news is that even if DOJ wins, Texas could just modify the law to exempt Federal agencies. Then it is enforceable again.

I think DOJ moving in now is probably a mistake. I would rather see other groups take this into lower courts and challenge the various nutty parts of the law. If that fails, DOJ can go in and then will have greater clarity on some of these obscure legal issues to present a better case.

This is a bit like putting all of your eggs in one basket. And McConnell's Supreme Court may well crush those eggs. If you found the irony in crushing eggs to defend destroying embryos, you get a cookie.
 
With a SCOTUS 6-3 conservative bias, they might like the way this, in effect, overturns Roe v Wade. The problem if they allow it, it that doesn't stop there does it?. If you can get around this Constitutional right by making a law that allows bounty hunters to file suit against people doing things liberals want to allow as legal, then you open the door to other states doing this for ANY right granted under the Constitution or its Amendments, and some of those will be things the conservatives may not like.

For example, an end-run around the 2nd amendment by allowing any member of the public, without standing, to file a Lawsuit against anyone who facilitates the selling of a firearm to someone who kills or injures another person with it, from the salesperson who sold it to them, through the owner of the gun shop, to the suppliers and wholesalers, all the way to the manufacturer.

Another example, an end run around the 4th amendment by encouraging people to voluntarily eavesdrop and carry out surveillance on suspects, and then carry out warrantless searches of suspects' properties, surveillance and searches that would otherwise be illegal if LEO's did it without a warrant.

If I were leading Democrat in the legislature of a liberal state right now, I would already be announcing publicly, that we have a working group looking very carefully at the Texas law to see if there was a way to adapt it to get around 2nd Amendment rights - that sure would make a few of their conservative sphincters twitch!
 
Originally Posted by Stacyhs View Post
Smartcooky has a good point. If a $10K fine is levelled against the defendant but they refuse to pay, how is that going to be enforced unless a court orders a garnishment of wages or a lien against property, etc? This is what happens in a civil case. If a court gets involved, isn't that the judicial branch of the state government enforcing it?
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RecoveringYuppy said:
Yes, of course it freaking is. Please drop this irrelevant de-rail. The fact that these civil suits are civil suits is not the freaking issue. It's obvious, irrelevant, and not even a problem that civil suits are civil suits.

The relevant problem is that private citizens with no relation to the events can file suit.

It is not at all a problem that civil suits are handled properly as civil suits.
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Oh, well, pardon me for asking a genuine question! When were you appointed thread monitor?

The point is that normally one would sue the state agency enforcing the law. But because no state agency is doing that the SC wouldn't put a hold on the law going into effect. So my question regarding the state judiciary enforcing the $10K fine is perfectly reasonable.

The peculiar enforcement built into the law seemed to baffle the judges, as it was intended to do. Instead of the state enforcing the law — the normal way these things work — the state’s anti-abortion measure leaves that to private citizens, who are empowered to sue anyone who “aids or abets” someone seeking an abortion — from the doctors who perform abortions to someone who drives a woman to a clinic. It includes a “bounty hunter” provision that allows someone who successfully files a suit to collect $10,000 on top of legal fees.

In its 5-4 ruling, the court didn’t rule on the law itself. The unsigned majority opinion wrestled with the enforcement scheme, saying “it is unclear whether the named defendants in this lawsuit can or will seek to enforce the Texas law against the applicants in a manner that might permit our intervention.”
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https://www.texastribune.org/2021/09/02/texas-new-abortion-law/

I hope that wasn't "too nuanced" for you.
 
JoeMorgue said:
I noticed you never answered my question.
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Stacyhs said:
Welcome to the club.
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It's a common reaction to difficult questions.


plague311 said:
I don't think you realize what the impression of this statement gives off.

I'm a man in every a man can be a man. I've never, ever had the desire to sleep with anything outside of my species, anything that isn't moving, and there are many that do move that don't snag my interest.

What an odd stance to take.
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Perhaps not odd to him?
 
Reposted from elsewhere.

The idea that the bible supports equality of status between woman and fetus is nonsense and probably heresy.

The term "abortion" is not used in the bible, but there are references.
The most obvious of these is Exodus 21:22-25, covering the case of a pregnant woman who becomes involved in a brawl between two men and has a miscarriage as a result of injuries sustained.
There is a clear distinction made between the penalty that is to be exacted for the loss of the fetus and that for injury to the woman. For the loss of the fetus a fine is paid. However if the woman is injured or killed then "lex talionis" is applied; eye-for-eye, life-for-life.
Now while this story has a somewhat limited application to the current debate (as it deals with accidental and not willful termination of a pregnancy) it does make the distinction between the woman and the fetus.
The woman is valued as a person while the fetus is valued as property, most definitely with a status inferior to that of the woman.

Also, specifically regarding the biblical basis for the current Texan "fetal heartbeat" nonsense, this is also unsupported at best and heresy at worst.

The bible doesn't address the issue much (as I've mentioned) but one can interpret the 'ensoulment' or "breath of life" as criteria for independent existence, and hence for personhood. Based on biblical precedent a person begins when the soul (that "breath of life") enters the fetus. Given that a fetus less than (around) 24 weeks old is incapable of breathing alone this suggests no strictly biblical bar on termination before this time as a fetus is not truly a living human before this stage.

Interestingly even Augustine of Hippo accepted the Aristotelian distinction between 'formed' and 'unformed' fetuses (from Exodus 21:22–23) and did not classify the termination of an 'unformed' fetus as murder due to the presumed lack of a soul.
This remained part of RCC doctrine until the nineteenth century (1869), with frequent debate over the relative status as sins of contraception, pre-quickening termination, post-quickening termination and post-birth killing.
The noted Anselm of Canterbury declared that "no human intellect accepts the view that an infant has the rational soul from the moment of conception", which was incorporated into the Decretum Gratiani (a standard collection of canon law) as "he is not a murderer who brings about abortion before the soul is in the body". There was debate again, over the time of ensoulment; though 40 days for a male fetus and 90 days for a female was commonly accepted.
Even Aquinas merely considered termination of an unquickened fetus 'irregular' and a sin, specifically not homicide.

Then again, expecting a heavily edited, poorly translated and disputed collection of fairy tales from bronze age nomads at the periphery of civilisation to be somehow relevant to modern society is stupid in the extreme.
 
catsmate said:
<polite snip>

Then again, expecting a heavily edited, poorly translated and disputed collection of fairy tales from bronze age nomads at the periphery of civilisation to be somehow relevant to modern society is stupid in the extreme.
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I think you forgot somthing pal.... these are Texas Republican God-botherers
 
smartcooky said:
I think you forgot somthing pal.... these are Texas Republican God-botherers
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Well yes, but I still find their biblical illiteracy and historical ignorance annoying; can't they find some other excuse for their pathetic power-grabbing misogyny?
 
"I'm a hateful bigot and I'm even lying and/or being Proudly Wrong about the reason I'm a bigot" fits in perfectly with their current mentality, which is literally everything they do being a flex about how wrong they are and daring us to do anything about it.

Everything they do makes sense if you just hear the not too subtle subtext of "I'm as aware I'm being wrong and hypocritical as you are, what I'm doing is daring you to do something about it."

And even beyond that Bible Thumpers being just... massively wrong about the Bible isn't exactly new.

And even beyond that I don't care if they are getting the Bible right or the Bible wrong, the book that mentions unicorns 9 times has no place in discourse, much less lawmaking.
 
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JoeMorgue said:
Nowhere. Just the endless sack of perpetual never-ending hijacks away from the topic.
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It's worse than a hijack though. A highjack is at least off-topic and might be edited out. The two bits of wrong that I responded to are unfortunately on-topic wrong and who knows if they won't get repeated and amplified further even with corrections in the thread.
 
DevilsAdvocate said:
I think DOJ moving in now is probably a mistake. I would rather see other groups take this into lower courts and challenge the various nutty parts of the law. If that fails, DOJ can go in and then will have greater clarity on some of these obscure legal issues to present a better case.
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I'm not contesting anything you said in your post, but if the DOJ took this route it would take time for everything to go through. Probably years. I don't think the women of Texas should have to wait that long, and any movement from the DOJ is welcomed at this point.
 
smartcooky said:
With a SCOTUS 6-3 conservative bias, they might like the way this, in effect, overturns Roe v Wade. The problem if they allow it, it that doesn't stop there does it?. If you can get around this Constitutional right by making a law that allows bounty hunters to file suit against people doing things liberals want to allow as legal, then you open the door to other states doing this for ANY right granted under the Constitution or its Amendments, and some of those will be things the conservatives may not like.

For example, an end-run around the 2nd amendment by allowing any member of the public, without standing, to file a Lawsuit against anyone who facilitates the selling of a firearm to someone who kills or injures another person with it, from the salesperson who sold it to them, through the owner of the gun shop, to the suppliers and wholesalers, all the way to the manufacturer.

Another example, an end run around the 4th amendment by encouraging people to voluntarily eavesdrop and carry out surveillance on suspects, and then carry out warrantless searches of suspects' properties, surveillance and searches that would otherwise be illegal if LEO's did it without a warrant.

If I were leading Democrat in the legislature of a liberal state right now, I would already be announcing publicly, that we have a working group looking very carefully at the Texas law to see if there was a way to adapt it to get around 2nd Amendment rights - that sure would make a few of their conservative sphincters twitch!
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Again, with the assumptions that this is not a partisan court that won't act in partisan ways even if it means gross inconsistency in their rulings and the arbitrary discarding of precedent.

There is no 'one weird trick that they don't want you to know' that can turn this thing around.
 
plague311 said:
I'm not contesting anything you said in your post, but if the DOJ took this route it would take time for everything to go through. Probably years. I don't think the women of Texas should have to wait that long, and any movement from the DOJ is welcomed at this point.
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Don't give up yet. There are still plenty of lower courts that have the power to block this law temporarily if sufficiently good cases come forward and the DOJ case could certainly count. It's been blocked by a lower court once already. I haven't followed that particular story so I don't where that stands right now.

And I think it's also worth pointing out that this case hasn't been ruled on by the US Supreme Court yet. And this Texas isn't completely clean from a conservative viewpoint. The wide open vigilante civil suits are a very dangerous precedent that conservatives know they don't want.

And don't take that to mean that I think we're out of the woods. There are plenty of other states working on cleaner and more direct challenges to abortion that won't have that issue.

ETA: https://thehill.com/regulation/cour...rrow-win-to-abortion-providers-fighting-new-6

That's the ruling I'm referring to. I don't know where it stands now.
 
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cosmicaug said:
Again, with the assumptions that this is not a partisan court that won't act in partisan ways even if it means gross inconsistency in their rulings and the arbitrary discarding of precedent.

There is no 'one weird trick that they don't want you to know' that can turn this thing around.
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This. This. This. A thousand times this.

"Oh yeah? Well how are the Republicans going to like it when the Left throws the Uno Reverse card and uses these precedents they set against them...."

They feel absolutely nothing about it because they, us, and everyone knows that's never going to ******* happen.

The Supreme Court will smack down any case of the Left doing that. And the Left either lacks the balls (pessimist version) or has the morals or at least shame (optimist version) or a little bit of both (realist version) to cheat the system in the same why the Right has.

It's the same goddamn flex with the Left every time. "Oh yeah, well how are you going to like it when we go as low as you, knowing we are never going to actually do that?"
 
Craig4 said:
Well, that was certainly well reasoned.
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Yeah it was.

When has "Oh well we'll just catch the Republicans in a GOTCHA by using their own tactics against them" ever worked?

The Courts, up to SCOTUS, will happily maintain the double standard and not lose any sleep over it.

As Cosmicaug said:
cosmicaug said:
There is no 'one weird trick that they don't want you to know' that can turn this thing around.
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JoeMorgue said:
Yeah it was.

When has "Oh well we'll just catch the Republicans in a GOTCHA by using their own tactics against them" ever worked?

The Courts, up to SCOTUS, will happily maintain the double standard and not lose any sleep over it.

As Cosmicaug said:
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It's not a gotcha, it's the law.
 
Craig4 said:
https://healthitsecurity.com/news/cyberthief-who-stole-phi-sentenced-to-prison

This is interesting. It's a case from Texas where someone went to prison for stealing health information. Illegally acquiring personal health information is a crime and exposes one to civil suits. It might be a good counter punch the first time someone brings one of these bounty hunter suits.
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I'm failing to see what someone going to jail for hacking a medical database has to do with a law that encourages people to snitch on their community.
 
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