Texas, with court’s implied consent, makes women second-class citizens

Thursday, Sept. 2, 2021 | 2 a.m.

Americans saw a dark repercussion of Donald Trump’s election Wednesday when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to consider an appeal of Texas’ restrictive new abortion ban.

The law, which went into effect with the Supreme Court’s refusal to intervene, has ramifications that spread well beyond the Texas women and families who will be directly affected by it. It will pit citizen against citizen by providing enforcement only by private individuals through lawsuits against abortion providers or anyone involved in helping facilitate an abortion. In effect, it incentivizes for-profit monitoring by citizens of other citizens and creates what amounts to an extrajudicial enforcement arm doing the dirty work the Texas GOP knows would otherwise be unconstitutional.

This is a law that restricts almost all abortions in Texas after six weeks, a time when most women don’t even know they’re pregnant. It will force the closure of women’s health clinics in a state that doesn’t have many of them to begin with, leaving women in Texas with little or no access to specialized reproductive care and services they desperately need to maintain their own health and responsibly manage their families.

Then there’s the vigilante-style enforcement provision, which “deputizes” citizens to take action against women seeking abortions and spy for signs of anyone helping them. This could include someone who might simply be driving a friend or loved one to an abortion clinic.

More disturbing yet, there’s a bounty involved — those who successfully sue will receive a $10,000 award and the cost for attorney’s fees. You don’t even have to live in Texas to file suit and pick up the reward.

Meanwhile, the provision creates a nightmare for clinic operators and anyone who gets dragged into a lawsuit as an accomplice, as they have to spend money to defend themselves.

This shocking law represents the GOP’s large-scale political mission in the United States: to turn Americans against each other, to provoke political violence and to encourage mob rule, provided it’s their mob.

To whom do these private enforcers report? What kind of database of citizens is being built? What kind of legal consequences are there for making false claims? Do the supporters of this law want vigilantes peeping in each other’s windows?

Roe v. Wade held that women have a right to control their own bodies on such a private matter as reproduction. The new GOP law not only flips this on its head, it introduces something so vile only the Taliban would approve: Texas now says anybody on the street has control of a woman’s body, just as fundamentalists in Afghanistan might cross the street to beat women who aren’t dressed “appropriately.”

Worse, as this anti-civics project of the GOP proceeds, the enforcement method smacks disturbingly of the Maoist Cultural Revolution, which turned China’s citizens against each other and resulted in people reporting others simply to settle personal scores.

Texas now says any member of the public has legal standing to control a woman’s body. It’s a breathtaking move and its implications are just as breathtaking. By the same legal standard if the state can’t control expression, legislatures could pass a law allowing citizens to sue individuals who said a word they didn’t like, or expressed a viewpoint they didn’t like. And the Supreme Court, to its eternal shame, stands mute.

There’s no real legal basis for the court to demur because the Supreme Court can observe that even though the state-passed law confers enforcement responsibilities to civilian “deputies” the effect would be the same if the state retained enforcement and the law is therefore unconstitutional. The “deputizing” is simply a ruse to mask unconstitutional behavior.

Although the law currently applies only to Texas, you can see where this is heading unless voters step up and halt the GOP’s destructive campaign. It puts the landmark Roe v. Wade decision in jeopardy, which would overturn the right of women to legally obtain abortions.

And all as a ripple effect from the 2016 election, abetted by Mitch McConnell’s refusal to hear Merrick Garland’s nomination, which led to the Trump-packed Supreme Court acting unlike previous Supreme Courts that would have stopped the law from going into effect until it could be fully argued before the justices.

It means untold numbers of women will no longer be able to make decisions about their own health. This includes those who have no idea they’re pregnant, and some who do but have compelling reasons to end the pregnancy. It includes some women with the means to travel out of state, and some who are stuck within Texas borders.

Furthermore, there is no exclusion for rape or incest. This raises a perverse possibility: a rapist or a family molester could sue his victim, and win, for trying to abort the fetus conceived in the crime.

It no doubt will include many who, without adequate access to safe reproductive health care, resort to dangerous methods to end their pregnancies.

To all of them, Texas says it knows best — especially white Texas men who, truth be told, may be the root cause of many unwanted pregnancies — for Texas women.

Voters everywhere, including in Nevada, shouldn’t forget this moment.

When it looks, as it does, like the Supreme Court has abandoned 50% of the electorate, declaring women second-class citizens when it comes to the most personal of rights — the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — it should not come as a surprise that the GOP will have to own this decision when women “come marching home” to the ballot box next year.

And, of course, if the women don’t think controlling their own personal health decisions matters to them, then we will learn that too.

Texas, the eyes of America are upon you. And we hope America does not blink.