More than 70 Republican state lawmakers have signed onto a friend-of-the-court brief siding with Attorney General Ken Paxton in arguing that a nearly century-old law imposing criminal penalties against those who help a patient obtain an abortion is enforceable now that the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
A decision on whether that pre-Roe measure is enforceable is expected in the near future from the Texas Supreme Court, which has temporarily allowed the statute to be enforced civilly but not criminally.
The lawmakers, in a filing penned by state Rep. Briscoe Cain of Deer Park, argue that the Texas Legislature has “repeatedly and emphatically affirmed” the existence and continued enforceability of the old laws in recent legislation.
They note both the state’s anti-abortion trigger law, which will go into effect 30 days after the decision overturning Roe is certified, and its previous six-week abortion ban included language to that effect.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs — seven abortion clinic groups throughout Texas — point to legislative and judicial treatment of the old laws that they say proves they are no longer considered to be in effect, including a 2004 Fifth Circuit opinion that said the old laws were “repealed by implication.” The old statutes were also removed from copies of the state’s criminal and civil codes online.
In court records filed Monday, the Republican lawmakers argue that a state court can now make its own decision in the case, no matter how federal courts have ruled in the past.
They add that the Texas and U.S. Supreme Courts both “disfavor repeals by implication” and defers to it only when statutes can’t be “harmonized.” The lawmakers argue the laws could work in tandem.
See here for the background. This is nearly a legislative majority in itself. Imagine what they’ll do next spring if there are no checks on their power.
They also want to sue everyone in sight.
Texas anti-abortion conservatives are intensifying their efforts to shut down access for residents seeking abortions, with a near-daily drumbeat of threats and court filings aimed at donors, employers and others trying to help those patients.
They are part of a broad campaign by the anti-abortion rights movement, in the days since the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the constitutional right to abortion last month, to dry up avenues of assistance for Texans who have no access to abortion under several state laws and punish providers who have tried to legally continue offering services in a constantly changing legal landscape.
In their crosshairs are not just providers, but also nonprofit funding groups and the donors who support them; people who volunteer time or give money to abortion providers; employers who support pregnant workers in getting abortions; and the abortion clinics and employees themselves.
“Any person who was complicit in these illegal abortions—including [provider] Whole Woman’s Health employees, volunteers, and donors, and anyone who aided or abetted these illegal abortions in any manner, apart from the formerly pregnant woman upon whom the illegal abortion was performed — is equally liable under the Texas Heartbeat Act and equally guilty of murder,” reads a recent court filing by attorney Jonathan Mitchell, the legal architect of many of those efforts, including Senate Bill 8, a Texas law that bans abortions after fetal cardiac activity is detected and allows citizens to sue suspected violators.
[…]
When the trigger law takes effect, the state will have at least three separate laws on the books that collectively make abortion from the moment of conception illegal in Texas, in almost all cases, and hold violators liable either civilly or criminally.
But abortion opponents are ready to ask for more, threatening new laws that would extend Texas abortion laws beyond state lines, widen prosecutors’ powers to pursue abortion cases and further criminalize anyone who tries to help Texans get abortions.
“I think they’re emboldened, and I also think that frankly, the base that they’ve become dependent on is going to demand that they just keep going,” said Dallas attorney Elizabeth Myers, who represents Lilith Fund, an abortion-funding group and advocacy organization that is among those being targeted in civil court filings and by Texas legislators. “They will go until the court says no.”
On the civil side, courts in conservative Denton and Jack counties are likely to start hearing arguments in the coming weeks over whether to let Mitchell interview, under oath, two major funding groups about their involvement in potentially illegal procedures under both the 1925 law and SB 8. A similar request was filed by Mitchell in Howard County last week targeting abortion providers.
If that effort is successful, the information and documents that the abortion providers and supporters may be forced to turn over could help anti-abortion rights attorneys build lawsuits against them.
And although civil depositions can’t be legally used in criminal cases, they are public records and could be easily obtained by local prosecutors seeking an evidentiary road map for their own criminal cases.
See here for the background, and note that they got started several months before the Dobbs ruling. If you think they will continue to exclude the women who get abortions from their campaign of vengeance, you are giving way too much credit to a group of people who think that ten-year-old girls should be forced to carry a rapist’s baby and that hospitals should be held criminally liable for performing live-saving care. I would argue this isn’t their highest priority going forward, it’s their only priority. And sooner or later, they’ll come after all of us. What are we going to do about that?
Crazy Republican shit…
Well … yeah. If you think abortion is murder, then you are going to try to prosecute the murderers.
I’d like a word with the non-voting “progressives” and youngsters who are just now figuring this out.
GOP/Right to Lifers~
Better start building (and continuously/continually funding) bigger prisons, just not with the tax dollars you’ve fought tooth and nail to Not collect from the populace and assorted 1%-ers.
Pingback: Austin takes its shot at protecting abortion access – Off the Kuff
Pingback: Abortion penalties will increase on August 25 – Off the Kuff
Pingback: Texas blog roundup for the week of July 25 – Off the Kuff