Just FYI, I’ve felt like the voice in the wilderness around here cautioning about what you’ve just said- that Biden’s victory wasn’t a mandate for progressive or even liberal policies, it was essentially a referendum against Trump as President.
But in Texas, the way that things are gerrymandered and the decades-long control of the Legislature and at-large state-level offices means that the Texas GOP is fully into pandering to their most rabid base at this time in the election cycle; this is all for the primary elections- they’re playing “more hatefully conservative than the other guy” in hopes of winning the primary elections. Then, when the general election comes around, they’ll moderate a small bit, as they’ve already got the rabid types in the bag, but the more moderate voters may not be convinced.
However, the relentless propaganda has convinced many of the more moderate voters that Democrats are the devil, and want to take their money and give it to non-white poor people, that they’ll vote Republican, regardless of how odious their particular policies may seem. Kind of a devil-you-know sort of situation- they don’t like that stuff, but at least it’s not against US, sort of thing.
I think the intended consequences of this law is to intimidate doctors and other health care providers to stop offering abortions.
How many doctors are going to want to go through the hassle of being sued every week? Even if they win the lawsuits? Most of them are going to decide to switch to some other specialty.
The result will be the law will get overturned in a year or two and abortions will still be legal. But women who wants an abortion won’t be able to find a doctor anywhere within two hundred miles that is willing to perform the procedure.
What will be the unintended consequences is when liberals start playing “back atcha”. As others have posted, we’ll be seeing equivalent laws giving everyone standing to sue a gun dealer.
The problem is that the “Big Sort” plays to Republicans’ favor as Democrats will tend to sort into fewer, more urbanized states and Republicans into less populated but more numerous states. Since every state has equal representation in the Senate, that will give Republicans a structural advantage in that chamber.
It also gives them a less pronounced advantage in the electoral college because of the Senate representation and that no state can have less than one Representative. So Wyoming gets three electoral votes with a population of 577 thousand, or one elector for every 192 thousand citizens. California gets 55 electoral votes with a population of 39.5 million people, or one elector for every 718 thousand citizens.
Did they give eliminate standing requirements for all lawsuits, or only the abortion ones? Can you cite where they did that? Because I’d be very surprised if that’s what they did.
Before Roe v Wade, rich people were able to get their doctors to to diagnose them with some sort of stress disorder. Which would allow them to get an abortion legally
Or rich people would just go to a jurisdiction where abortion was legal, or even if they weren’t rich but could pull together the needed funds - such places did exist (a mother of a friend of mine took a trip to New York City, for example).
The wealthy always find a way around these restrictions, if no other reason than they can simply go elsewhere.
Just for the abortion ones. So one person sues a politician, claiming that they facilitated an abortion. The court finds in favor of the politician, and maybe declares the plaintiff vexatious. And then some other person also claims that the politician facilitated an abortion, and so they sue, too. Repeat until everyone has filed a suit.
Ah. So just made-up allegations. The plaintiffs, then, can possibly be sued for harassing the defendant via litigation (malicious prosecution, abuse of process, or similar) if there’s no basis at all for the suit. Conferring everyone with standing to sue under this anti-abortion law is one of its many bad provisions, but it probably doesn’t, unfortunately, authorize the free for all against literally everyone that you posit.
Frankly, if you can sue an Uber driver for giving her a lift, why not sue the government officials that maintain the transportation system? Someone gave that driver a license, and a registration, and built roads for him to drive on.
You don’t think Texas courts and juries are going to be able to make a distinction between people who provided actual “assistance” and the lawmakers who enacted that law and are then targeted?
Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for figuratively beating them about the head and shoulders with their own stupid-lawsuit stick. I just don’t think it will work. The plaintiffs in the proposed sue-the-lawmakers plan will wind up paying a literal price.
Who says the plaintiffs will win? They don’t need to win, they just need 1,000 people to file lawsuits against the Governor for his ‘role’ in assisting an abortion, and he’ll have to respond to 1,000 court dates. If he fails to show, he loses even if the suit is meritless. If the suit is found to be meritless, there’s no penalty to the plaintiff, that’s part of the law.
You must appreciate that
is what this law is designed to enable. It isn’t about a legitimate claim vs a spurious claim, they’re ALL spurious.
But the advantage of being the Governor is that he has taxpayer-funded lawyers on staff who will respond to any lawsuits, get them heard in front of friendly judges, move to dismiss, etc. Even if people file 1,000 lawsuits against Abbott, he’ll never see the inside of a courtroom or be out any time or money. The same cannot be said for the real targets of this legislation.
Fine, sue his wife, or his daughter. I would have suggested suing his mother, but she passed away some time ago.
The point is, he signed legislation to allow people to harass others by lawsuit. Harassing people they’ve never met, never interacted with, weren’t harmed by, and enjoying specific legal protection if/when their suit is found to be groundless. The people of Texas should use that power to sue the people who created this legislation into oblivion.
You’re missing what I’m talking about. No one is quoting or citing what the actual law says, so I can’t tell. But I’m not talking about penalties in the abortion lawsuit itself. I’m talking about a separate suit for suing someone for malicious purposes without probable cause to believe that your allegations are true. That’s a separate suit that may be available in Texas, and may not be prohibited, depending on what the anti-abortion law says specifically.
This appears to be the text of TX SB8? (Or some draft of it? I’m not too clear on which link if any gets you to the full text of the actual law that was signed into effect.)
I think a couple of awesome unintended consequences would be to have the woman who had the abortion name and claim the man who knocked her up and made the abortion necessary. Make sure we get some DNA evidence to prove we know what man is responsible. File a million lawsuits against every man who caused an unwanted pregnancy that led to an abortion. I figure this one is pretty likely.
Second one, and the one I don’t think is likely but would love to see happen is every woman in Texas who doesn’t like this law to strike. No work, no emotional labor for the family, and especially no PIV sex. Alternately, the women pack up their daughters and simply vacate the state, leaving the giant clusterfuck sausage party they so obviously crave. Have fun, guys, women have left the building.
I’ve been thinking this whole time; these people must not like sex bc it sure seems like they are doing everything in their power to make women afraid of it.