Here’s another less than earth-shattering, but real, unintended consequence:
More women will obtain contraception because getting to a Planned Parenthood clinic becomes easier (no walking past a gauntlet of protestors).
In theory, they could switch to protesting against artificial contraception. But this risks dividing the pro-life movement, so they probably won’t bother.
Another unintended consequence is that it fuels The Big Sort. Progressives will move out of Texas, or refuse to take jobs there, cementing it in as a GOP bastion, while having an opposite effect on purple states without such laws.
Groups funding private investigation of politicians and suing them at any sign that they have funded a girlfriend’s abortion? Although wives might be in a better position to get that information.
Yeah, this is going to cost Republicans big on the national level.
This is not how this is going to happen; if anything, the protests outside Planned Parenthood are going to increase. The people who have been protesting outside of Planned Parenthood want Planned Parenthood to be outlawed entirely, irregardless of how many other non-abortion services that they offer.
Not to mention the fact that many of the anti-abortion protestors are also anti-birth control too. If they actually do succeed in getting Roe v. Wade overturned, that is going to be the next target of the religious right. At the end of the day, these groups just simply do not believe that women should have any control over when they get pregnant.
Not only does this remove the requirement of standing, but it also says that, even if the defendants win, the plaintiff cannot be required to pay the defendant’s legal costs. That’s another major tool usually used to prevent frivolous lawsuits. And yet another: Texas maintains an official list of “vexatious plaintiffs”, those who have brought too many frivolous lawsuits, and who must therefore jump through extra hoops to bring a suit… but with literally everyone having standing, even non-Texans, there’s an effectively limitless supply of potential plaintiffs to go after those politicians.
What makes you think that’s unintended? The authors and supporters of the law are and were fully aware of what this would do to women’s health and especially poor women’s health. This is what they want.
Many are, but many are not. So the unintended consequence would be a split in the pro-life movement, or their losing many of their active supporters.
Taking you literally, I disagree at all times of the day. They want to end a single means of control --abortion – and choose not to make an issue of other ways, because some of their own members use other ways. Also, one way for a woman to control fertility is to become a nun, and they aren’t against that…
Compare and contrast to China’s new three child policy. The government there knows they have a birth dearth, which is why they now allow three, but they still insist on control. And they are still harassing nuns (previously, convents were all closed). However, the Chinese authorities don’t dictate when women have sex. So even this most extreme example of attempted control over female fertility does not extend to taking away all of a woman’s control, just some of it.
I wish I could believe that.
The way I understand the demographics of abortion numbers one consequence of this law will be that more unwanted poor babies, in particular black and latino babies, will be born. And as being an unloved baby is one importantant indicator for later problems in life there will be more crimes, drug abuse, mental illnesses and murders among the poor in ~20 yrs time and more child abuse until then. Segregation will increase, society will be more polarised, the rich will get richer, the poor will get poorer.
I’ve pointed that out to conservatives before - that by banning abortion, they’re allowing a lot more liberal voters to be born.
In what ways will the law affect IVF protocols wrt selective reduction of multiple embryos in a pregnancy? Will they prevent women from reducing their sextuplets to triplets to twins to a singleton?
Somehow I feel this expensive procedure utilized by those with access to resources and support will be able to evade this abortion law.
Maybe they only want to target saving embryos that implanted naturally?
I think the current law only applies after six weeks, long after the timeframe of IVF (and also long after the timeframe of ectopic pregnancy, another issue that’s been raised).
I think the long-term plan is to ban all forms of birth control, and then just selectively enforce that only against the people they don’t like. The rich and powerful have always openly ignored laws like this.
What do you mean six weeks is long enough for IVF? Patients might not get their first infrasound until 8 weeks, and selective reduction would not occur in uterine before six weeks
It depends on how many women who get legal abortions later have more total children, in their lifetime, than they might have had without the abortion. Life sometimes takes twists like that.
But my guess is that you, on balance, are correct.
Did they then tell you that by allowing abortion, you are lowering the Black population and preventing progressive candidates from winning?
It’s a tribute to both sides that they, as a matter of principle, favor a policy causing long-term harm to their own political ideology.
Oh, I thought you were referring to the practice of fertilizing multiple ova in vitro, but then only implanting one. Which is also condemned by some anti-abortion activists.
But they’ll mostly be poor and minority kids so we can just throw them in jail and/or shoot them on playgrounds before they reach voting age, amirite?
The modern conservative movement needs the premise of a restless and dangerous uncontrollable underclass in order to keep its voters in line. Look how hard Trump kept pumping the bellows in the 2020 election cities about cities being “destroyed” by violent rioters etc. etc. etc. More suffering and hence more unrest among poor people is a feature, not a bug as far as Republican strategy is concerned.
I read an editorial that described the law as a gift to liberals, because it’s turned attention away from Joe Biden’s No Good Very Bad month.
I think the law is mostly a performative stunt and that it will get shot down as soon as a real case makes it’s way to the Supreme Court. No matter how much they want to kill Roe vs Wade, allowing this kind of citizen involvement in state law enforcement isn’t a good idea for anyone. Maybe Virginia would pass a law that went after gun owners in exactly the same way.
I have a friend ( not a particularly close friend) that is an oncologist in Texas and while I haven’t spoken to her about the law - I know that pregnant women sometimes consider therapeutic abortion as part of their life-saving cancer treatment.
That gave me an idea. Here’s what I think the next step should be. Find an oncologist willing to be the test case, have her recommend abortion to a pregnant cancer patient and find someone to sue her. This should be fairly easy to set up, it’s not like the defendant is risking criminal penalties.
Then work that case up through the court system. I’m betting that even with the SC we have now, it’ll get shot down.
This law may be the catalyst that gets young people out to vote. Young people (under 40) have grown up in a world where things like abortion access can be taken for granted and so they are complacent. This draconian action hits home in a way losing voting rights just doesn’t, and combined with other recent events, it may be the spark that moves them from Reddit postings to action. And that would be devastating for Conservatives everywhere.
Maybe 15 years ago, but I don’t think today’s Supreme Court can be trusted to do the right thing.