Let’s say they get this through the courts and are able to do it. How will they do it? Checkpoints at the border with mandatory pregnancy tests for all women? If you’re getting an abortion for a non-medically necessary issue, you’re probably not pregnant enough to be showing yet.
I think this is a civil prosecution like Texas’ abortion ban. So say you and a friend of yours live in Texas. Your friend was raped and just found out that she’s 7 weeks pregnant. You help her get to a blue state for an abortion.
At some point, your friend tells her mother who happens to tell me. I sue you and your friend to collect thousands of dollars.
Now even if I’m unsuccessful, you still need to deal with the time, money, and stress that a civil trial brings. And if you’re found to be in violation of that law, you could be out thousands of dollars. This is all intended to make people reluctant to help pregnant women. It’s a cruel law designed to scare people into being crueler to others.
It only takes one or two unsuccessful suits for this to not even be taken up by the courts in the future though, right? And I don’t know how you can prove someone had an abortion out of state.
And it only takes the vague threat to have a chilling effect on women getting medical access they are otherwise entitled to, unfortunately.
I can’t imagine anything good coming out of asking that many women if they’re pregnant when they’re not. That’s the kind of mistake you make once, not make it a full time job!
You really don’t want to ask an overweight woman that question. You might lose a few teeth.
Is there a boomer humor community yet?
This is the best summary I could come up with:
But, in Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson (2021), the Supreme Court effectively shut down federal lawsuits challenging unconstitutional laws that are enforced solely by bounty hunters.
As the Supreme Court said in Shapiro v. Thompson (1969), “the nature of our Federal Union and our constitutional concepts of personal liberty unite to require that all citizens be free to travel throughout the length and breadth of our land uninhibited by statutes, rules, or regulations which unreasonably burden or restrict this movement.”
And, in a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court agreed that this bounty hunter framework immunized the law from federal lawsuits seeking to block it.
That’s why it was so important to block the law before anyone was sued under it, and why the Supreme Court’s decision to immunize SB 8 from federal review was such a harsh blow to abortion rights in Texas.
Under that legislation, the ban on traveling through the wrong Texas county to help someone obtain an abortion “shall be enforced exclusively through … private civil actions.”
But the law could wind up deterring women in abusive relationships, or other patients whose acquaintances or family members learn that they are seeking an abortion.
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