Roe v Wade is on deck

[lpetrich]

More pre-RvW in the US, quoting from Wikipedia:

• 1959 – The American Law Institute (ALI) drafts a model state abortion law to make legal abortions accessible.
• 1966 – Mississippi reformed its abortion law and became the first U.S. state to allow abortion in cases of rape.
• 1967 – Colorado became the first state to decriminalize abortion in cases of rape, incest, or in which pregnancy would lead to permanent physical disability of the woman, and similar laws were passed in California, Oregon, and North Carolina.
• 1968 – Georgia and Maryland reformed their abortion laws based on the ALI MPC.
• 1969 – Arkansas, Delaware, Kansas, New Mexico and Oregon, reformed their abortion laws based on the ALI MPC.
• 1970 – Hawaii, New York, Alaska and Washington repealed their abortion laws. Specifically, Hawaii became the first state to legalize abortions on the request of the woman,[33] New York repealed its 1830 law and allowed abortions up to the 24th week of pregnancy, and Washington held a referendum on legalizing early pregnancy abortions, becoming the first state to legalize abortion through a vote of the people.[34]
• 1970 – South Carolina and Virginia reformed their abortion laws based on the American Law Institute Model Penal Code.

ALI MPC = American Law Institute Model Penal Code

 

[lpetrich]

Florida may consider abortion bill similar to Texas after SCOTUS decision | Fox News

Florida may consider adopting an abortion ban similar to that of Texas, which banned all abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected — around six weeks after conception — after the Supreme Court declined to hear the case on Wednesday.

Republican Florida Senate President Wilton Simpson confirmed that the Sunshine State would be likely joining other states in passing anti-abortion legislation following the Supreme Court’s decision, he told WFLA on Thursday.

"When the Supreme Court goes out and makes a decision like this, it clearly is going to send a signal to all the states that are interested in banning abortions or making it more restrictive to have an abortion in their state, it’s certainly going to make us take a look at those issues," Simpson said.

...
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said on Thursday he supports pro-life legislation and would be looking into it.

"What they did in Texas was interesting, and I haven’t really been able to look enough about it, they’ve basically done this through private right of action, so it’s a little bit different than how a lot of these debates have gone, so we’ll have to look, I’m going to look more significantly at it," DeSantis said, according to NBC6. "I do think that at the end of the day the science on this has been very powerful now for a long time, you go back 40 years ago what people thought versus what they can see now, very very powerful, so I’ve always been somebody that really does support protections for life, as best as we can do."

Florida Legislature to consider abortion heartbeat bill | Miami Herald

On Thursday, Florida Senate President Wilton Simpson, R-Trilby, told WFLA that lawmakers are “already working on” a so-called “heartbeat bill.” In other states like Ohio and Texas, such bills have banned abortion as early as six weeks — before some women begin to suspect they are pregnant.

When asked to confirm his legislative intentions, Simpson sent a Times/Herald reporter an emoji of a smiling sun wearing sunglasses.

Simpson did not elaborate.

Latest News: Florida, Arkansas Plan Versions of Texas Abortion Law

South Dakota gov. wants abortion laws tightened after Texas ban stands

With Texas as model, Noem seeks more abortion restrictions

That gives us FL, AR, and SD.

 

[Terrell]

But.. But .. The 2 parties are the same. /sarcasm

How did that work out w/r/t abortion rights? I doubt they'll stop there.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Texas: Where a virus has reproductive rights but a woman does not.

Holy crap that's funny!

It is clever, not funny. Not remotely funny.

Good. People need to get mad. I'm not directing this at Jimmy. But the left needs to come together. The republicans have been united for years. Primarily because they wanted the supreme court, and wanted to overturn RvW and other such rights. And they did it. Good for them. Now the left is going to pay. The left was inspired to turn out in great numbers in the Gore vs Bush days (thank you Nader) and 2016. The 2020 vote was way too close. And a majority of white women voted for Trump. Hopefully the left losing the right to control their bodies will finally unite the party, and get off our asses and vote, and make your vote count.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Here's the piece of legal theory I don't understand -- perhaps someone here knows. We're always told that standing is a controlling factor in lawsuits, especially as it relates to government. Example: an athiest's suit against Bush II having a faith-based office in the WH had his suit dismissed because courts told him he had no standing and could not demonstrate a personal interest or personal loss from the Bush policy.
So -- what gives a private citizen in Texas any standing to sue someone else who either had an abortion, performed an abortion, or facilitated an abortion?

The legislature. It can pass a law granting standing in this or that.

It isn’t that simple. This law is nothing but smoke and mirrors. Allowing this opens pandora’s box on ridiculous political legislation. Such as third parties suing anyone that helped that person who shot up a school.

 

[Elixir]

The republicans have been united for years. Primarily because they wanted the supreme court, and wanted to overturn RvW and other such rights.

That's not why they are united. They are united because Republican politicians intentionally appeal to the lowest common denominator; they round up the stupid, the dishonest and the ignorant. Those people are easy to unite. You dangle a carrot in front of them then frighten them from behind and they lurch forward as one, on command.

Allowing this opens pandora’s box on ridiculous political legislation. Such as third parties suing anyone that helped that person who shot up a school.

They are truly malevolent, and these new laws are more likely to open up the ability to sue anyone who tries to stop someone from shooting up a school or tries to prosecute a school shooter.

 

[Elixir]

Here's the piece of legal theory I don't understand -- perhaps someone here knows. We're always told that standing is a controlling factor in lawsuits, especially as it relates to government. Example: an athiest's suit against Bush II having a faith-based office in the WH had his suit dismissed because courts told him he had no standing and could not demonstrate a personal interest or personal loss from the Bush policy.
So -- what gives a private citizen in Texas any standing to sue someone else who either had an abortion, performed an abortion, or facilitated an abortion?

The legislature can probably offer a framework for "standing":
"Show us on this dolly where Ms. Smith offering a ride to Ms. Jones hurt you, and we can pursue a $10,000 reward for you."

SCOTUS has demonstrated that they won't stand in the way of even the most ridiculous State-level legislation if it supports the Texas Taliban ideology.

 

[TomC]

Many opponents of abortion claim that they want to leave it to the states to decide. But will they be good losers about states that continue to accept abortion?

Abortion tourism is likely to be another contentious issue.

This is why, even though I don't support RvW as currently written, I'm even more opposed to state level regulations. Some of the ugliest problems, pre-RvW, was stupid and badly written laws that only applied to people who couldn't afford to cross a state line. It was a nightmare. I totally oppose giving states any authority on the subject.
Tom

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I think some Blue State should quickly issue a law which allows to sue anybody who exercise or helps in any way that texas law by anybody for $100K.

I really see no way for this texas BS to stand.

Extend that to anyone who brings suit under the Texas law.

 

[Trausti]

Here's the piece of legal theory I don't understand -- perhaps someone here knows. We're always told that standing is a controlling factor in lawsuits, especially as it relates to government. Example: an athiest's suit against Bush II having a faith-based office in the WH had his suit dismissed because courts told him he had no standing and could not demonstrate a personal interest or personal loss from the Bush policy.
So -- what gives a private citizen in Texas any standing to sue someone else who either had an abortion, performed an abortion, or facilitated an abortion?

The legislature. It can pass a law granting standing in this or that.

It isn’t that simple. This law is nothing but smoke and mirrors. Allowing this opens pandora’s box on ridiculous political legislation. Such as third parties suing anyone that helped that person who shot up a school.

It is that simple. That you may have done something differently is irrelevant.

 

[ZiprHead]

Republicans in six states rush to mimic Texas anti-abortion law
North Dakota, South Dakota, Mississippi, Indiana, Arkansas and Florida eye similar measures to new Texas ban after six weeks

 

[ZiprHead]

What is stopping a blue state from enacting legislation that allows anyone to sue anyone who uses the Texas law to sue an abortion provider? A hundred grand sounds like a nice round number.

 

[lpetrich]

I will now consider abortion tourism from Florida. The closest Florida big city to other cities is Jacksonville, and I'll use that city as a reference.

What is the nearest abortion-friendly state? With the rise of the Democratic Party in Virginia, and with recent abortion-friendly legislation there, it looks like that state. I'm not sure about North Carolina and Georgia, which are dominated by the Republican Party, but where Democrats sometimes win statewide races.

So here goes. Jacksonville to:
Roanoke VA: 589 mi, 8h 46m, Norfolk VA: 612 mi, 9h 5m, Richmond VA: 598 mi, 8h 43m
Washington DC: 706 mi, 10h 28m, Baltimore MD: 744 mi, 11h 13m
Carbondale IL, 794 mi, 12h 19m

Florida cities to Roanoke VA: Jacksonville FL: 589 mi, 8h 46m, Orlando FL: 719 mi, 10h 37m, Tampa FL: 774 mi, 12h 21m, Miami: 925 mi, 13h 4m.

Turning to orbitz.com it's $150 between Miami and DC. Flight time 2h 40m

I then turned to Greyhound's schedules for its buses: greyhound.com

• Dallas TX - Albuquerque NM: 649 mi, drive 9h 32m, bus 15h 25m
• Dallas TX - St. Louis IL: 664 mi, drive 9h 44m, bus 14h 50m (East St. Louis, IL)
• Jacksonville FL - Richmond VA: 598 mi, drive 8h 41m, bus 14h 5m

 

[TomC]

No, it's in the law that defendants get nothing if they win.

Maybe a good lawyer can find a way around that.
It's what lawyers do.
Tom

 

[TomC]

No, it's in the law that defendants get nothing if they win.

Maybe a good lawyer can find a way around that.
It's what lawyers do.
Tom

I'm not talking about a way around the law itself.
How about doxxing the plaintiffs and hacking them or swatting?
I'm totally opposed to those sort of tactics. But the Texas legislature declared war. All's fair in war. And the first casualty of war is the Truth.

Tom

 

[lpetrich]

For these anti-abortion states, I looked for abortion-friendly neighbors. In parentheses is a state without a shared boundary.

• Texas - New Mexico
• Florida - (Virginia)
• Arkansas - (Illinois)
• Mississippi - (Illinois)
• North Dakota - Minnesota
• South Dakota - Minnesota
• Indiana - Illinois

Republicans seethe with violence and lies. Texas is part of a bigger war they’re waging | Rebecca Solnit | The Guardian - "This extremist vigilante abortion law is of a piece with everything else Republicans are doing: overturning democracy itself"

The Texas abortion law that the rightwing supreme court just smiled upon, despite its violation of precedent, seethes with both violence and lies. The very language of the law is a lie, a familiar one in which six-week embryos are called fetuses and a heartbeat is attributed to the cluster of cells that is not yet a heart not yet powering a circulatory system.

Behind it are other lies, in which women have abortions because they are reckless, wanton and callous, rather than, in the great number of cases, because of the failure of birth control, or coercive sex, or medical problems, including threats to the health of the mother or a non-viable pregnancy, and financial problems, including responsibility for existing children.

But what was new about the Texas bill is its invitation to its residents to become vigilantes, bounty hunters and snitches. This will likely throw a woman who suspects she is pregnant into a hideous state of fearful secrecy, because absolutely anyone can profit off her condition and anyone who aids her, from the driver to the doctor, is liable. It makes pregnancy a crime, since it is likely to lead to the further criminalization even of the significant percentage of pregnancies that end in miscarriage. It will lead women – particularly the undocumented, poor, the young, those under the thumbs of abusive spouses or families – to die of life-threatening pregnancies or illicit abortions or suicide out of despair. A vigilante who goes after a woman is willing to see her die.

The rightwing stance on abortion is often treated as a contradiction coming from a political sector that sings in praise of unfettered liberty to do as you like, including carry semiautomatic weapons in public and spread a sometimes fatal virus. But like the attack on voting rights in Texas happening simultaneously with the attack on reproductive rights, it is of course about expanding liberty for some while withering it away for others. The attacks on reproductive rights seek to make women unfree and unequal; the attacks on voting rights seek to make people of color unfree and unequal; women of color get a double dose.

This is the logical outcome of a party that, some decades back, looked at an increasingly non-white country and decided to try to suppress the votes of people of color rather than win them.

 

[Elixir]

I don't support RvW as currently written

I'm curious what RvW provision you find objectionable.
I'd like to see a pointed federal law: "No person, or State or Local government shall abridge any woman's right to seek, nor impede their access to, reproductive care including abortion and [the kitchen sink...] "

Without something like that, all that will ever occur will be revolving precedent cases like Roe that can be circumvented, overturned, reinstated etc. ad nauseum.

No, it's in the law that defendants get nothing if they win.

I will be gobsmacked if ANYONE, EVER collects the 10k bounty promised under TX law. Should that occur, it might even trigger a scorched earth response from Dems including the Sinema and Manchin DINOs.
Proving intent with knowledge and aforethought is damn near impossible under that best of circumstances (see Cheato vs Everyone else x1000).
But you never know what can be done with enough jury tampering and threats...

 

[Elixir]

 

[Loren Pechtel]

What is stopping a blue state from enacting legislation that allows anyone to sue anyone who uses the Texas law to sue an abortion provider? A hundred grand sounds like a nice round number.

Yup, turn their law back on them. It won't be too effective because it could only be applied if the action or the person resided in the blue state.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I will now consider abortion tourism from Florida. The closest Florida big city to other cities is Jacksonville, and I'll use that city as a reference.

The shortest route to abortion tourism: Ships. It's been done before to avoid laws. Park out beyond the 12 mile limit and only dock in friendly ports.