The forced birth fanatics are just getting started. And it’s already ugly.
A group of Texas state House lawmakers called the Texas Freedom Caucus sent a letter to a law firm in Dallas last week threatening “consequences” over the firm’s decision to reimburse employees for the costs of out-of-state travel to obtain an abortion.
The lawmakers’ missive, sent and posted on its website on July 7, accused the firm, Sidley Austin LLP, of being “complicit in illegal abortions” in Texas that were allegedly performed before and after the Supreme Court issued its Dobbs ruling that struck down Roe v. Wade.
“It has come to our attention that Sidley Austin has decided to reimburse the travel costs of employees who leave Texas to murder their unborn children,” state Rep. Mayes Middleton (R), the chair of the Texas Freedom Caucus, wrote in the email to Sidley Austin, which is based in Chicago but has an office in Dallas. “We are writing to inform you of the consequences that you and your colleagues will face for these actions.”
Middleton claimed that the law firm was “exposing itself and each of its partners to felony criminal prosecution and disbarment,” citing Texas’ anti-abortion law from 1925 that the state can now enforce after the Supreme Court struck down Roe last month.
“We will also be introducing legislation next session that will impose additional civil and criminal sanctions on law firms that pay for abortions or abortion travel,” Middleton warned.
The new legislation, according to the letter, will criminalize any Texas company’s reimbursement of “elective abortions” or “abortion-related expenses — regardless of where the abortion occurs, and regardless of the law in the jurisdiction where the abortion occurs.”
It will also require the State Bar of Texas to disbar any lawyer who violates the states’ ban on abortion, Middleton warned.
The email included a CC to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R), who has sworn to enforce the state’s abortion restrictions in the wake of the Supreme Court’s strikedown of Roe.
We’ve known this was coming – these guys are not subtle – and we’re already seeing some of it with other big national companies. As it happens, Monday’s CityCast Houston podcast featured an interview with Jane Robinson, 2020 Democratic candidate for Chief Justice of the 14th Court of Appeals and partner with litigation firm AZA, which is offering similar benefits to its employees. They will for sure be in the crosshairs as well. Hopefully, they’ll be good enough at litigating to hold back the mob, but there’s only so much they’ll be able to do if the laws get changed sufficiently. This is among the things we’re voting on this November.
Pingback: A seafaring abortion clinic? – Off the Kuff
Two thoughts about this. First, I am pretty sure the US Constitution specifically bans ex post facto laws, so whatever they pass in the TX legislature couldn’t possibly be both retroactive AND constitutional. You get to pick one.
Second, this, like the abortion bounties law, would only, in practice, be triggered, if someone from Sidley is a whistleblower, which would probably be a HIPPA violation, among other legal liability issues. Still it would only take one disgruntled employee to wreak havoc. Sidley might want to think about that when issuing bonuses this year.
Having said that, it would make for a heck of a civil suit against the law firm, as each partner, and any employees that facilitated payments could be clipped for $ 10K. Seems like it would be an easy sue-and-settle lawfare attack.
Pingback: Big Law versus the Forced Birth Caucus – Off the Kuff