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Lawsuit targets Texas abortion law deputizing citizens to enforce six-week ban

cigaretteman

HR King
May 29, 2001
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Abortion rights advocates and providers filed a federal lawsuit in Texas on Tuesday seeking to block a new state law empowering individuals to sue anyone assisting a woman with getting an abortion, including those who provide financial help or drive a pregnant patient to a clinic.

A dozen states have passed laws banning abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy. But the Texas law, set to take effect in September, goes further by incentivizing private citizens to help enforce the ban — awarding them at least $10,000 if their court challenges are successful. Even religious leaders who counsel a pregnant woman considering an abortion could be liable, according to the lawsuit filed in Austin by the Center for Reproductive Rights, Planned Parenthood and the ACLU on behalf of several other groups.
Proponents of the measure, which had the backing of the Republican governor, cheered passage of the “heartbeat bill” as a landmark victory.






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But abortion providers say the law, known as S.B. 8, is unconstitutional and will subject them to endless lawsuits, shut down clinics and reduce services — and they say it will isolate abortion patients by undermining support networks for pregnant women.
“The state has put a bounty on the head of any person or entity who so much as gives a patient money for an abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, before most people know they are pregnant,” Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights said in a statement. “Worse, it will intimidate loved ones from providing support for fear of being sued.”
Texas governor signs abortion bill banning procedure as early as six weeks into pregnancy
Although abortion patients themselves cannot be sued under the Texas law, a controlling parent, disapproving neighbor or abusive spouse could target the woman’s doctor in court to try to stop the abortion.



Marva Sadler, director of clinical services for Whole Woman’s Health which operates four clinics in the state, has encountered antiabortion protesters at work for more than 12 years and expects she and her colleagues will be targeted by lawsuits.
“It’s really, really scary for me to imagine the people we pass through to go to work on a daily basis, who yell at us … now have the authority and ability to sue me at will,” Sadler said. “Not only is it an attack on the access, but it absolutely feels like a personal threat as well.”
More than 85 percent of women who choose to terminate their pregnancies in Texas are at least six weeks into pregnancy, according to advocates, so the law would prevent nearly all abortions in the state and operations at Sadler’s clinics would ramp down, she said.

Similar measures that ban abortion after a doctor detects a fetal heartbeat, or around six weeks of pregnancy, have passed recently in other states, including this year in Idaho and Oklahoma. But federal judges have prevented those measures from taking effect.


The Texas law is more difficult to block, according to opponents, because it is enforced by private lawsuits, not state government officials who are typically the defendants in federal constitutional challenges.
Instead, those behind the new federal suit are using a novel legal approach, taking aim at every state trial court judge and county court clerk in Texas, plus the attorney general and state medical boards.

They are asking a federal judge to prevent any of the state’s trial court judges, potentially more than 1,000 throughout Texas, from enforcing the law and to block court clerks from accepting the lawsuits.
The director of Right to Life East Texas, Mark Lee Dickson, who has encouraged people to take action and offered to recommend attorneys, is also named as a defendant. Dickson did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment on the lawsuit.


Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) signed the legislation in May and celebrated what he called a victory for Texans.
“Our creator endowed us with the right to life and yet millions of children lose their right to life every year because of abortion,” Abbott said at a closed-door ceremony. “In Texas, we work to save those lives. That’s exactly what the Texas Legislature did this session.”

 
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