September 3, 2021
BY BRIAN HEWS
The Texas abortion law is a stunt and it will fail.
In order to sue someone, plaintiffs need to have standing.
“Standing” in state courts mandates that Plaintiffs have sustained or will sustain direct injury or harm and that the harm is subject to compensation.
At the federal level, legal actions cannot be brought simply on the ground that an individual or group is displeased with a government action or law.
Texas Governor Abbot and his lawmakers have tried to do away with the requirement in all US. Courts of standing and damages.
What the Texas law declares completely debases U.S. courts saying we will allow anybody to use the court for their own ideological purposes without the requirement of standing or damages.
Once vigilante Texans file cases to turn in innocent women, the judges will say to the plaintiff, “this is not the subject of a lawsuit, in order to bring a lawsuit you need standing and damages, and you have neither; you don’t like the way your neighbor exercises her constitutional rights, that’s tough, case dismissed.”
Yet Texas passes a law declaring private citizens can sue any other citizens for exercising their constitutional rights, for doing something the first citizen does not like.
Let’s break that constitutional logic down and apply it to a raw subject here in California – gun laws.
According to Texas, California can now pass a law declaring citizens can sue anybody for carrying a gun. The person being sued says “WAIT A MINUTE I have a constitutional right under the Second Amendment to have guns,” and they would be correct.
In Texas, women can now say the same thing, “I have a constitutional right under Roe v. Wade, which is still the law of the land, to have an unfettered decision to have an abortion in the first trimester and a nearly unfettered decision up to “viability.”
With Texas’ logic, California could pass laws where you could sue gun owners notwithstanding their Second Amendment rights and sue people for hate speeches notwithstanding the First Amendment.
I am all in on that.
The five SCOTUS justices?
They have absolutely no allegiance to constitutional law and ignore their own Roe v. Wade case law, so they are not going to take it up on an emergency basis.
SCOTUS can still kill Roe v. Wade, but it won’t be because of this law.
If state legislators can pass laws and hand off the enforcement to citizens, how about Congress passing laws and handing off the enforcement of those laws to citizens?
That is why it will fail.
September 5, 2021
That didn’t take long.
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A state judge has shielded, for now, Texas abortion clinics from lawsuits by an anti-abortion group under a new state abortion law in a narrow ruling handed down Friday.
The temporary restraining order Friday by state District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble in Austin in response to the Planned Parenthood request does not interfere with the provision. However, it shields clinics from whistleblower lawsuits by the nonprofit group Texas Right to Life, its legislative director and 100 unidentified individuals.
A hearing on a preliminary injunction request was set for Sept. 13.
The law, which took effect Wednesday, allows anyone anywhere to sue anyone connected to an abortion in which cardiac activity was detected in the embryo — as early as six weeks into a pregnancy before most women even realize they are pregnant.
In a petition filed late Thursday, Planned Parenthood said about 85% to 90% of people who obtain abortions in Texas are at least six weeks into pregnancy.
The order “offers protection to the brave health care providers and staff at Planned Parenthood health centers throughout Texas, who have continued to offer care as best they can within the law while facing surveillance, harassment, and threats from vigilantes eager to stop them,” said Planned Parenthood spokeswoman Helene Krasnoff in a statement.
However, the order will not deter Texas Right to Life’s efforts, said Elizabeth Graham, the group’s vice president. In a statement, the group said: “We expect an impartial court will dismiss Planned Parenthood’s lawsuit. Until then, we will continue our diligent efforts to ensure the abortion industry fully follows” the new law.
