We’ll see what SCOTUS does with this one, because for sure that’s where this will end up.
Reproductive rights groups on Tuesday filed a federal class-action lawsuit to head off possible prosecution from Texas officials for helping Texans gain access to legal abortions in other states.
The suit filed in Austin names Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton as well as a class composed of the county and district attorneys who could enforce the state’s near-total abortion ban, which goes into effect on Thursday.
The law, known as House Bill 1280, was passed last year. It is “triggered” into taking effect on Thursday by the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in June on Dobbs v. Jackson, which overturned Roe v. Wade’s constitutional protection for abortion access.
The plaintiffs want a federal judge to issue an injunction barring Paxton and prosecutors from using that law and other statutes to target those reproductive rights groups for activities the groups say conservative state leaders may politically oppose but are still legal.
The groups want the court to confirm that “the Trigger Ban cannot be enforced by any Defendant … in a manner that violates Plaintiffs’ rights to freely travel, freely associate, freely speak, and freely support members of their communities through financial assistance, as guaranteed by the United States Constitution and federal law,” according to the suit.
The named plaintiffs are Fund Texas Choice, the North Texas Equal Access Fund, the Lilith Fund for Reproductive Equity, Frontera Fund, The Afiya Center, West Fund, Jane’s Due Process, Clinic Access Support Network and Dr. Ghazaleh Moayedi, an outspoken Texas provider.
They’re asking for legal protection to continue fundraising and paying for out-of-state abortion expenses, including raising funds for travel or other costs or for the procedure itself, as well as helping pregnant Texans with logistical information about legal abortions out of state, according to the lawsuit.
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The suit argues that Paxton, along with “activist legislators and their associates,” are waging a coordinated effort to harass organizations exercising their right to free speech by defending access to abortions and helping pregnant Texans seek them legally under the current bans. Most of the latter involves financial or logistical help in obtaining an abortion in another state where the procedure is still legal.
The court filing points to, as an example, several statements in late June by state Rep. Briscoe Cain, R-Deer Park, asserting that donors, volunteers, employees and anyone else connected to these groups are guilty of violating the law for helping people legally outmaneuver the Texas ban. He also has suggested that the constitutionally protected right to travel interstate for any reason doesn’t translate to the right to pay for someone else to do it, such as for an abortion.
To set the table a bit here, in their amicus brief to a writ of mandamus that blocked a lower court order that would have enjoined the 1925 state law criminalizing abortion, 70 Republican legislators argued that criminal penalties should apply to people who help others get an abortion. I’m sure we can comprehend how far they believe that definition of “help” should be pushed; we need only note what spurts out of Briscoe Cain’s mouth if we’re ever uncertain. There is also a separate federal lawsuit filed by Wendy Davis making similar claims about her right to donate to abortion funds. I don’t know if there has been any action on that front. Two abortion access funds had previously filed lawsuits against anti-abortion activists to protect themselves from SB8-related litigation. There’s a lot going on.
If you for some reason believe what the justices in the majority of the Dobbs opinion said at the time, the right to travel for an abortion should still be upheld on constitutional grounds. As you can tell, I don’t have much faith in anything those charlatans say, but they did say it. Litigation like this will be the first test of that proposition, and whether SCOTUS allows an injunction against the trigger law to stand will give us an early indication. Place your bets now.