Greetings from Gilead...er, somewhere in Texas
Where never is heard a discouraging word, but pregnant women best watch themselves
Well, let's see. There's—of course in the great history of America there have been rulings that there's never going to be absolute consensus by every American, and there are those issues, again, like Roe v. Wade, where I believe are best held on a state level and addressed there. So, you know, going through the history of America, there would be others. But, um.
Sarah Palin
Once upon a time, Texas believed itself to be the land of the free, a place where free men could do the sorts of things that free men do. You’ll notice, of course, that nowhere in that sentence did I mention women…because women have always more or less been considered property in Texas.
With the shitcanning of Roe v. Wade last summer, the degrees to which Texas Republicans are willing to go to control women’s bodies have become genuinely astonishing. Now they’re targeting the ability of women to leave the State while pregnant. Never mind that interstate travel is a right guaranteed to all Americans by the Constitution.
(And how the authoritarians plan to enforce this proposed law has been left unsaid, perhaps because there’s no practical mechanism available. Good luck with that.)
Ah, f**k it. Like Dubya once said, the Constitution’s just a goddamned piece of paper, right?
Not content to simply ban abortion within state borders, Texas conservatives are now targeting people’s ability to travel out of state to get the procedure. Anti-abortion activists are working to pass laws that would make it illegal to drive someone on roads within the city or town if the end destination is an abortion clinic, according to chilling new reporting by the Washington Post. The goal is to keep women and pregnant people trapped in Texas and forced to give birth.
Activists are targeting Texas areas with airports and regions that include interstate highways to New Mexico, the only one of the four states that border Texas where abortion is still legal. The laws allow anyone to sue a person or organization they think has violated the ordinance, though the woman seeking the abortion would be exempt. The ordinances have already passed in two counties and two cities, but two others, Llano and Chandler, have tabled their votes amid opposition.
Of course, I’m not an attorney, but despite my exceedingly limited legal background, it’s difficult to see how this law passes constitutional muster. How do you demonstrate that someone’s driving a woman to an abortion clinic and not to, say, a Whataburger in El Paso?
Sure, she’s four months pregnant…but damn, she REALLY needs a couple of cheeseburgers, knowhutimean??
Asked about the constitutionality of his ordinances, [director of Right to Life of East Texas Mark Lee] Dickson cites the Mann Act, a federal law from 1910 that makes it illegal to transport “any woman or girl for the purpose of prostitution or debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose.” If the Mann Act is constitutional, he says, so is this.
Not necessarily. As I understand it, the Mann Act has been used primarily in cases involving underage girls. That’s not the case here, so whether Dickson’s argument would be applicable remains unclear. Again, I’m not an attorney, so I won’t attempt to dissect the legal arguments. My gut tells me that his interpretation is mistaken, however.
Take that for what it’s worth.
There are a lot of staunchly anti-abortion Conservatives whose panties are in a wad over the fact that still, a year after Roe v. Wade was overturned, plenty of people do end runs around anti-abortion laws.
On some level, they’re upset they can’t tie women down until they give birth.
THAT would stop the baby killers, eh?
That frustration is driving a new strategy in heavily conservative cities and counties across Texas. Designed by the architects of the state’s “heartbeat” ban that took effect months before Roe fell, ordinances like the one proposed in Llano — where some 80 percent of voters in the county backed President Donald Trump in 2020 — make it illegal to transport anyone to get an abortion on roads within the city or county limits. The laws allow any private citizen to sue a person or organization they suspect of violating the ordinance.
Antiabortion advocates behind the measure are targeting regions along interstates and in areas with airports, with the goal of blocking off the main arteries out of Texas and keeping pregnant women hemmed within the confines of their antiabortion state. These provisions have already passed in two counties and two cities, creating legal risk for those traveling on major highways including Interstate 20 and Route 84, which head toward New Mexico, where abortion remains legal and new clinics have opened to accommodate Texas women. Several more jurisdictions are expected to vote on the measure in the coming weeks.
“This really is building a wall to stop abortion trafficking,” said Mark Lee Dickson, the antiabortion activist behind the effort.
“Abortion trafficking” is the new buzzword of the Far-Right to brand those who dare travel while pregnant instead of staying home to give birth. They honestly believe an “underground railroad” is transporting women out of Texas to abortion-friendly states like New Mexico so women can kill their babies.
Whether that’s true or not isn’t germane to this story. What is true is that a committed cabal of anti-choice zealots believe they have the right to prevent women from exercising their right to make choices regarding their bodies. Because of their beliefs, they’re convinced that their moral code is vastly superior, and that means they should be able to lock women away for a few months if that’s determined to be necessary.
Hey, Texas…you remember what freedom used to be like, right? Because women in the Lone Star State sure as Hell don’t.
As if it weren’t bad enough to have your own state ban basic health care options, red states are now trying to prohibit their residents from traveling to other places to access procedures Republicans don’t like.
Missouri is trying to prevent its residents from having out-of-state abortions. Idaho is trying to prevent parents from taking their trans kids to other states for gender-affirming procedures. This is the unprecedented and, frankly, crazy result of the Supreme Court giving its blessing to Texas’ six-week abortion ban, which is enforced with a bounty hunter provision that encourages citizens to spy on and sue each other….
Texas has allowed private citizens to sue anyone who aids or abets an abortion in the state and, as a result, abortion providers have halted all abortions after six weeks. Banning abortion that early in pregnancy is (for now) unconstitutional, but the Supreme Court has repeatedly refused to block S.B. 8, owing to its novel enforcement mechanism.
Now, after seeing the legal success of Texas’s “sue-thy-neighbor” bill, Republican lawmakers are attempting to use its framework to not only ban abortion and gender-affirming care, but prohibit people from leaving their home states to obtain these life-saving procedures in elsewhere. That these proposals to trap people in their states are coming from the allegedly pro-freedom and anti-government interference party would be a funny bout of irony if the proposals weren’t so deadly.
“It’s utterly outrageous,” Andrew Beck, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, told Jezebel. “This is taking the Texas model, which has already eviscerated access to abortion in Texas and trying to apply it to people seeking abortion anywhere, whether or not in the state of Missouri. We’re already at a national crisis point.”
The GOP, formerly The Party of Small Government ©, has decided that the government needs to be just small enough to fit into a woman’s uterus…along with a tracking device to ensure she’s not going to leave the State to pursue an abortion.
(That rumbling you hear off in the distance? That might be black helicopters and battalions of jack-booted soldiers marching as one.)
So much for getting government off the back of the “little guy,” eh?
[Feel free to insert a few stanzas of Onward, Christian Soldiers here….]
Most Americans still believe that a woman’s right to choose is fundamental and should be left to a discussion between a woman and her doctor- not a woman and her Republican legislator.
With the Republican legislator having the final say, of course.
Of course, Republican anti-choice zealots don’t care that they’re in the minority. They believe they were to the manor born and thus are America's rightful owners and rulers. Period.
“Those damned Liberals can pound sand…because women won’t be allowed to control their bodies until we say so”…and no one should hold their breath on that count.
“We just need to be able to keep pregnant women off our roads so they can’t escape and kill their babies. It’s what Jesus would do, don’tchaknow??”
Youbetcha.
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