The law doesn’t say “six weeks.” It says a physician must attempt to detect a fetal heartbeat, and if it is so detected, any abortion performed then falls under the statute. I suppose he could falsify the records, but then he would be violating real laws.
Okay, yeah that does make sense.
~Max
I heard this news story on NPR that “fetal heartbeat” is really a misleading term. One paragraph from the story,
“At six weeks of gestation, those valves don’t exist,” [Dr. Nisha Verma, an OB-GYN] explains. “The flickering that we’re seeing on the ultrasound that early in the development of the pregnancy is actually electrical activity, and the sound that you ‘hear’ is actually manufactured by the ultrasound machine.”
171.201(1)
“Fetal heartbeat” means cardiac activity or the
steady and repetitive rhythmic contraction of the fetal heart
within the gestational sac.
Not an actual sound.
~Max
Right, but, again, not to defend the law, but you could lie and abuse the court system for anything. I could sue my neighbor for assault by saying that he threatened to beat my ass yesterday (when that is false).
If someone is willing to abuse the court system and make false or perjurious statements in court filings, then there are procedures and criminal penalties to deal with that.
Well, I mean the initial burden is on the claimant (who, in this case, claims the biological father paid for the abortion). I think the civil standard is clear and convincing preponderance of the evidence. He-said-she said won’t cut it.
I don’t know how it works with discovery. I assume it’s on the judge to determine, before granting discovery requests, whether the suit is a fishing expedition.
~Max
I am well aware that there is a difference between what is legal and what is moral, just, and right.
Why not? That’s what’s done to women in Texas - they’re powerless to stop a pregnancy yet liable for the result when the kid is born.
Well, at least we agree on that.
Except people might not be aware they are getting entangled in a legal matter. The Uber driver picking up a fare likely has zero notion of why a woman might be going to see the doctor, yet under this law that driver could in fact be sued and held liable even if he has no knowledge of the “crime” being committed. Uber and Lyft are both convinced enough of this to be making provisions to protect their drivers in the event such a thing happens. The hotel chain a woman checks into prior to an abortion (because of the distance required to travel) may have no knowledge of why the woman is in town but they, too, could be sued for “aiding and abetting” an abortion under this law.
That is just yet one more reason this is a stupid, bad, evil law.
At least until a conservative judge decides it IS covered.
For all the conservatives scream about “activist judges” they sure seem happy when judges interpret the law in a way they favor.
The law requires intent, so a “don’t ask don’t tell” policy would protect Uber/Lyft/Mission Inn from aid&abett liability.
There is no basis. The law is very clear that it only prohibits providers licensed by the State of Texas from performing abortions after detecting (or without checking for) a fetal heartbeat. There is a provision in the federal Constitution and very strong precedent that a State may not criminalize behavior that takes place outside of its jurisdiction.
~Max
Problem is, most women who are pro-choice aren’t likely to have male pro-life partners. They’d be with someone who has views they agree or jibe with, which would most likely be progressive pro-choice men. In other words, the only men who are likely to be denied sex under such a strike would be…pro-choice men who already opposed the Texas law to begin with.
Meanwhile, pro-life women who support the Texas abortion law would just laugh and keep banging their pro-life husbands in bed.
And there is something Victorian/archaic about the notion that sex is something that only men enjoy and women don’t, and therefore a bargaining chip used by women to get what they want.
Not everyone has a full time partner, y’know, and we know that guys having casual sex are already pissy about using condoms. Maybe the thought that their casual hookup partners are unwilling to risk PIV sex might possibly get some of the idiots thinking about how perhaps their state legislature using sex as a punishment for women just might be a terrible idea.
As for it being a Victorian idea–well, just how fucking far back in history do you have to go to justify using the threat of forced pregnancy to keep women in line? Deuteronomy springs to mind. And it’s not a question of whether women ENJOY sex or not, it’s a question of whether the possible RISKS are worth the extremely transitory enjoyment of some dude pumping sperm into the Danger Cave. It’s not a question of sex being a “bargaining chip,” it’s more like the chilling effect HIV had on the male gay community when raw dogging became extremely unpopular for a very long time. It’s not that bottoms suddenly stopped enjoying being pounded, it’s that they weren’t willing to actually, y’know, DIE for it. If I were a fertile women in Texas I wouldn’t be having PIV sex either unless I was REALLY sure of my birth control and those backward ass bullshit fucks in that state are making BC harder to get as well.
I mean, seriously, if they hate women that much, why would we stick around for that shit?
Since when is the man powerless to stop it? If he doesn’t want her to have an abortion, he can prevent that by not impregnating her.
And to be clear, I don’t advocate suing every Texas politician indiscriminately, only those for whom there’s some evidence. Say, those who are known or plausibly alleged to have had extramarital affairs. Or those who have fewer children than they’ve had years of marriage-- Clearly, they’re using some form of birth control, which may well be abortion. Heck, I’ll be generous and make it fewer children than half the number of years they’ve been married.
I imagine the average abortion clinic doesn’t have a sign out front that says “We kill babies here”. They problem have names like “Women’s Health Services”.
As I understand it, the law doesn’t apply any standard the requires a person to have some reasonable level of awareness of what somebody is doing. It just says you can be sued if you assist somebody in obtaining an abortion and driving them to a clinic qualifies, even if you are unaware of what their purpose is for going there.
I don’t think that the premise of these Lysistrata situations (or modern retellings such as Spike Lee’s Chi-Raq) is that “sex is something that only men enjoy and women don’t”.
Rather, it’s that women have a more clear-eyed view of the horrible situation that men have gotten them all into, and thus are willing to make the temporary sacrifice of sexual enjoyment for the sake of exerting pressure on men’s behavior, because it’s the only real power they can exert in the situation.
I cited the text above. One must “knowingly engage in conduct that aids or abets…” If an Uber driver takes a woman to “Woman’s Health Center” then he has no idea if she is getting an abortion. He doesn’t fall under the law if he has no specific knowledge that he is driving her to get an abortion. No attorney would take this case.
You don’t really need an attorney. You can file a suit yourself.
The real sticking point of the Texas law is that the defendant can’t recover attorney fees, no matter how frivolous the suit is found. The defendant probably should retain an attorney, at their own expense.
If I were a pro-lifer, I’d be hanging out around women’s health agencies, and taking down the information of anyone who enters or drops anyone off, and simply filing suit against them. Maybe one of them gets you a payout, maybe not. But the point would be to create a chilling effect, where an Uber driver won’t take a fare that goes to a women’s health clinic out of fear of having to spend time and money in defending themselves against a suit filed under this law.
Doesn’t the Uber driver knowingly engage in the conduct? That is, the driver knowingly drives the woman somewhere, and that drive aids or abets the abortion.
There’s some legal principal that I can’t think of that’s about this. You don’t have to mean to commit a crime, but you have to knowingly do something that ends up breaking the law.
It would have been stronger language if they had thrown in ‘and willfully’ there. Or they could have defined knowingly in the statute.
However, it probably covers having to have actual knowledge of aiding and abetting an abortion.
Then, I don’t understand why Uber and Lyft drivers were ever mentioned. The woman would basically have to say to them, “Hi! I’m going to Podunk Women’s Services to get an abortion, and I’m pretty sure the doctor will be able to detect that faux heartbeat!”
If you listen to the pro-life protestors outside of Planned Parenthood, the only reason to go into one is to get an abortion. So, if an Uber driver drops someone off outside of one, then they should know what they are going in there for.