Governor, Margaret Atwood Is Holding On Line Two For You
Under His Eye....
Galvanized by the very real possibility that the Supreme Court is poised to overrule Roe v. Wade in the coming months, Republican-controlled legislatures around the country are racing to pass extreme new restrictions on abortion. Four states have enacted laws banning all abortions from conception; nearly a dozen more have passed “heartbeat bills” that seek to ban the procedure at six weeks. On Wednesday, Texas joined this bloc when GOP Gov. Greg Abbott signed the state’s own “heartbeat bill,” SB 8, into law. Like the other states that have passed these laws, Texas cannot actually enforce the ban under Roe, which prohibits state officials from banning abortion before viability. But lawmakers believe they have devised a workaround to Roe’s roadblock: Rather than empower state officials to implement the ban, they have granted virtually every private citizen the right to sue anyone who “aids or abets” an abortion after six weeks of pregnancy. The goal is not simply to outlaw abortions, but to terrify and punish patients by bankrupting those who support them.
Having once upon a time lived in Texas for a bit over 10 years (3722 days…but who was counting??), I think I’m still qualified to wade in on this subject. Though I moved back to Portland from Houston in 2007, I’ve maintained an interest in Texas politics. This is mostly because what happens in Austin is WAY more interesting than what happens in the Oregon Legislature in Salem. For one thing, the Oregon Legislature tends to rather boring. It’s like when I was a kid, and I’d go down to my Dad’s gas station to watch him stock the cigarette machine. In a town of fewer than 1000 people, THAT was entertainment.
I suppose that’s what happens in a blue state- less drama, more sensible policy, less bad theater. Because the vast majority of Oregon’s population resides in the uber-blue Willamette Valley in the state’s northwest corner, the vast majority of Oregon’s map (just not the voting population) is deep, deep red. Southern, central, and eastern Oregon might as well be western Idaho (Eight counties have voted to do exactly that…but that’s another story for another time.)
Ah, but I digress. Oregon politics is every bit as lacking in excitement and cheap drama as Texas’ is overflowing with it. In Oregon, every statewide office is held by a Democrat. In Texas, every statewide office is held by a Republican. If you’re thinking that makes for two different worlds, politically speaking, you’d be correct.
For many years now, Texas had been a deep red state. The joke has long been that Texans would vote for a ham sandwich if it had an “R” behind its name. That joke has a ring of truth to it, and because of that truth, the Texas Democratic Party (TDP) has long bordered on the mythical. Every four years, TDP would offer up a sacrificial lamb to run for Governor…and every four years, that lamb would be slaughtered, held up for ridicule, and then it would recede into deserved anonymity.
In the meantime, TDP would recede into the background. The Texas GOP would then resume running roughshod over the state and federal constitutions.
Long ignored, however, have been the overwhelmingly Hispanic counties along the Rio Grande River that borders Mexico. This area has long been heavily Democratic and growing in population. Combine this area with the more Liberal and heavily-populated cities like El Paso, Houston, Austin, San Antonio, and Dallas, and Republicans have been taking note of a concerning trend. Texas is no longer necessarily the deeply and reliably red outpost it’s long been.
With the Hispanic population in the Lone Star State growing at a far more rapid pace than the White population, Republican political dominance is becoming far less assured. Indeed, Texas is moving toward becoming a decidedly purple state. In future presidential elections, it’s possible that it could become a swing state.
In the middle part of the 20th century, Texas was heavily Democratic, though hardly a Liberal bastion. Democrats in Texas then would today probably be considered moderate Republicans (and endangered species in today’s whacked-out GQP) today. You could Google “Boll Weevil Democrats” to better understand what I’m referring to.
Richard Nixon’s Southern Strategy (and its attendant virulent racism) succeeded in moving Texas firmly into the Republican column, where it remains today. With the Lone Star State’s demographics now shifting, it appears the pendulum is again swinging, this time from red to blue.
This trend has Texas Republicans running scared…and so they’re fighting back in the only way they know how- by doubling down on red meat Conservatism- God, guns, gays…and abortion.
In the case of Texas’ new abortion bill, Republicans have taken a new tack. By empowering private citizens to participate in enforcing the new law, they’ve essentially created an enforcement mechanism consisting of millions of busybodies. Under SB 8, self-righteous buttinskys have the legal right to insert themselves into the private business of those they don’t even know.
SB 8’s language is sweeping: It encompasses anyone who “aids or abets the performance or inducement” of an abortion after six weeks, before the vast majority of patients know they’re pregnant. It also applies to any person who merely “intends” to aid or abet such an abortion, regardless of whether they follow through. Almost anybody, including complete strangers, can sue the alleged accomplice in Texas state court. If the plaintiff prevails, the accomplice must pay them a minimum of $10,000 for each abortion “abetted,” plus attorneys’ fees. If a plaintiff sues an alleged accomplice and loses, by contrast, they are not required to pay their target’s attorneys’ fees—a recipe for harassing lawsuits. Moreover, the plaintiff can demand litigation in a county of their choice, forcing their target to travel hundreds of miles to defend themselves.
SB 8 is written in such a way that its breadth is stunning. Insurance companies who pay for abortion services after six weeks can be sued and held liable. Doctors, nurses, clinic staff, friends, family members, clergy, rape crisis counselors, an Uber driver, anyone who helps a woman cover her bill, donors to an abortion fund (even if outside of Texas)- all of these folks and more can be sued under SB 8.
An individual can be sued even if they form an intent but never act upon it. Yes, if I have a friend who wants to have an abortion and I consider assisting her in any way, ANYONE can sue me. Taken to its logical (and ridiculous) extreme, a person could be sued BECAUSE SOMEONE ELSE READ THEIR MIND and divined their intent.
It’s finally happened; Texas Republicans have created a genre of thought crimes.
The bill also states that an alleged accomplice may not cite their reliance on “any court decision that has been overruled” as a defense against liability. This rule applies even if the court decision “had not been overruled” at the time of the offense. In other words, SB 8 imposes ex post facto liability, penalizing individuals for conduct that was legal when they engaged in it. And it compels state courts to continue enforcing the law if a lower federal court declares it unconstitutional….
This cruelty is a feature, not a bug, of the law.
Try to wrap your head around that…if you can. You can be convicted under SB 8 for something that was legal at the time you did it. If an Uber driver dropped off a woman at an abortion clinic for a (legal) abortion on Tuesday, but SB 8 went into effect on Friday, that driver could be tried and convicted ex post facto, despite not knowing what he was “involved” in.
Texas Republicans have sold SB 8 as a law intended to protect abortion patients from those who would exploit them in a time of vulnerability. Clearly, though, abortion patients are the TARGETS of SB 8. It’s about demonizing women who seek to terminate pregnancies, regardless of the circumstances behind it.
It seems unlikely (though not impossible) that SB 8 will ever take effect: The bill establishes an untested system that seems destined to collapse into a mess of frivolous suits that would entangle Texas courts in an endless legal nightmare. In addition, as a group of 300 Texas lawyers, including many former judges, pointed out in a letter to the Legislature, the law seems to violate the Texas Constitution, which bars individuals from suing over conduct that did not injure them personally. Whatever the fate of this particular act, however, Texas Republicans’ long-term aim is clear. The state wants to end abortions not just by outlawing the procedure, but also by punishing everyone involved in the process. As SB 8 illustrates, there is no way to do that without punishing patients, too.
Republicans have long known that they were unlikely to kill Roe v. Wade with a full-on frontal assault. Because Roe V. Wade has been considered settled law, it’s been believed to be virtually impossible to cobble together a majority in the Supreme Court that would overturn the 1973 decision.
Instead, anti-abortion zealots have for years pursued a much more subtle and nuanced strategy, one akin to being nibbled to death by ducks. Instead of a frontal assault, those opposing abortion rights having chosen to wage campaigns on numerous fronts. The hope is that by taking a long-term approach, they will be able in the end to erode one of the metaphorical legs supporting the stool representing Roe v. Wade.
There have been TRAP laws, laws regulating abortion providers, laws requiring waiting periods, laws requiring dishonest mandatory counseling. Red state legislatures have passed laws known to be unconstitutional in the hope they could elevate them to the Supreme Court. The hope has been that they could use at least one as a springboard to overturn Roe v. Wade.
If all of this sounds like something straight out of The Handmaid’s Tale, it’s because it does. Laws like SB 8 have less to do with “protecting” women than they do with maintaining Republican hegemony in states such as Texas. GOP leaders figure that if they can maintain the outrage over hot-button issues at acceptably high levels, Republicans stand a better chance of winning elections.
The truth is that Republicans don’t give a damn about women…or their reproductive functions. SB 8, like so many other laws in so many other red states, is about political power and control. This, of course, means that when all is said and done, it’s about MONEY.
It’s the Golden Rule writ large: He who has the gold makes the rules…and let there be no doubt about who will be making the rules- wealthy, overfed, Conservative White men. Because as any REAL God-fearing American knows, girls and women can’t be trusted to make sound decisions when it comes to their ladyparts.
Hey, the word’s “hysterical” for a reason, knowhutimean??
If Republicans have to turn Texas (or America) into Gideon to ensure that they’re still in power…well, that’s just the cost of doing business.
Blessed day, y’all….