Paco Dennis
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- Mid-Missouri
"In May, Texas governor Greg Abbott signed into law an abortion ban that feels inconceivably extreme, even by his state’s standards. Senate Bill 8 banned abortion past the point of fetal “cardiac activity” — in practical terms, around six weeks — even in cases where pregnancies result from incest or rape. Though cruel, this type of ban is not uncommon, particularly not in a year that saw state legislatures pass at least 90 abortion restrictions in six months. But S.B. 8 takes the unprecedented step of empowering private citizens to police their neighbors, placing at least a $10,000 “bounty on people who provide or aid abortions, inviting random strangers to sue them,” according to a federal lawsuit challenging the policy. So on top of being unconstitutional, S.B. 8 incentivizes vigilantes to sue strangers on suspicion of abetting abortion.
Lawmakers deliberately engineered S.B. 8 to withstand legal challenges, and indeed, federal courts declined to award abortion providers an injunction before the law took effect on September 1. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule on an emergency application from abortion providers today, but in the meantime, here’s everything you need to know about this latest brand of anti-abortion extremism.
Speaking purely in terms of the law’s effect, S.B. 8 does the same thing any six-week ban aims to do: outlaw abortion well before many people even realize they’re pregnant. In Texas specifically, S.B. 8 would make at least 85 percent of abortions performed in the state illegal.
The six-week mark is pegged to the fallacy — beloved by anti-abortion groups — that a human heart begins to beat about six weeks into pregnancy. But the existence of a heartbeat implies the existence of a heart, something embryos don’t have. Abortion antagonists have never been in it for accuracy, and in evoking the specter of a heartbeat, they seek to play on emotions. Still, six-week bans are hard to route around the Supreme Court, which currently — under terms set by Roe v. Wade — ensures the procedure legal until viability, at around 23 weeks.
S.B. 8 specifically takes enforcement of the law out of the state’s hands, deputizing any private citizen who does not work for the government to do that job instead. Under the new law, random people would be incentivized to sue in civil court — to the tune of at least $10,000 in damages per termination — not only abortion providers, but also anyone who “knowingly engages in conduct that aids or abets the performance or inducement of an abortion.” The latter category seemingly includes insurance companies, along with abortion funds that help people pay for the procedure and its attendant hidden costs. “Obviously we have a target on our back being abortion funds,” Cristina Parker, communications director of Texas’s Lilith Fund, told Jezebel. “We’ve got support on deck for if and when we get sued, but there’s not much to prevent folks from doing it.”
In short, Texas’s unprecedented tactic mobilizes untold private bounty hunters (complainants do not even need to live in Texas, necessarily, or be at all connected to the people they accuse), offering them a financial reward in exchange for policing clinics, physicians, aid groups, and other people who might, for example, agree to a favor as small as driving their friend to an appointment, or accepting the Uber fare. The law promotes a frankly unhinged degree of interpersonal surveillance, and unfortunately, that winds up being its strength. In dividing up the enforcement task between so many as-yet-unnamed players, lawmakers preserved the policy against injunction. As Jezebel notes, legal groups and/or providers typically sue state officials when faced with an unconstitutional abortion ban, blocking the law from taking effect on grounds that it violates precedent established by Roe v. Wade. But in this case, there is no clear defendant to name; just the credible threat of expedient action from anti-abortion zealots who are ready to act immediately. Providers did still try to stop S.B. 8 from taking effect before September 1, but they were not successful."
https://www.thecut.com/2021/09/texas-bans-abortion-at-6-weeks-sets-bounty-on-providers.html
Lawmakers deliberately engineered S.B. 8 to withstand legal challenges, and indeed, federal courts declined to award abortion providers an injunction before the law took effect on September 1. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule on an emergency application from abortion providers today, but in the meantime, here’s everything you need to know about this latest brand of anti-abortion extremism.
What does S.B. 8 do?
Speaking purely in terms of the law’s effect, S.B. 8 does the same thing any six-week ban aims to do: outlaw abortion well before many people even realize they’re pregnant. In Texas specifically, S.B. 8 would make at least 85 percent of abortions performed in the state illegal.
The six-week mark is pegged to the fallacy — beloved by anti-abortion groups — that a human heart begins to beat about six weeks into pregnancy. But the existence of a heartbeat implies the existence of a heart, something embryos don’t have. Abortion antagonists have never been in it for accuracy, and in evoking the specter of a heartbeat, they seek to play on emotions. Still, six-week bans are hard to route around the Supreme Court, which currently — under terms set by Roe v. Wade — ensures the procedure legal until viability, at around 23 weeks.
How is S.B. 8 different than bans in other states?
S.B. 8 specifically takes enforcement of the law out of the state’s hands, deputizing any private citizen who does not work for the government to do that job instead. Under the new law, random people would be incentivized to sue in civil court — to the tune of at least $10,000 in damages per termination — not only abortion providers, but also anyone who “knowingly engages in conduct that aids or abets the performance or inducement of an abortion.” The latter category seemingly includes insurance companies, along with abortion funds that help people pay for the procedure and its attendant hidden costs. “Obviously we have a target on our back being abortion funds,” Cristina Parker, communications director of Texas’s Lilith Fund, told Jezebel. “We’ve got support on deck for if and when we get sued, but there’s not much to prevent folks from doing it.”
In short, Texas’s unprecedented tactic mobilizes untold private bounty hunters (complainants do not even need to live in Texas, necessarily, or be at all connected to the people they accuse), offering them a financial reward in exchange for policing clinics, physicians, aid groups, and other people who might, for example, agree to a favor as small as driving their friend to an appointment, or accepting the Uber fare. The law promotes a frankly unhinged degree of interpersonal surveillance, and unfortunately, that winds up being its strength. In dividing up the enforcement task between so many as-yet-unnamed players, lawmakers preserved the policy against injunction. As Jezebel notes, legal groups and/or providers typically sue state officials when faced with an unconstitutional abortion ban, blocking the law from taking effect on grounds that it violates precedent established by Roe v. Wade. But in this case, there is no clear defendant to name; just the credible threat of expedient action from anti-abortion zealots who are ready to act immediately. Providers did still try to stop S.B. 8 from taking effect before September 1, but they were not successful."
https://www.thecut.com/2021/09/texas-bans-abortion-at-6-weeks-sets-bounty-on-providers.html
