[HN Gopher] New Texas Abortion Law Likely to Unleash a Torrent o...
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New Texas Abortion Law Likely to Unleash a Torrent of Lawsuits
Against Education
Author : gamontserrat
Score : 101 points
Date : 2021-09-04 17:46 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.eff.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.eff.org)
| OrvalWintermute wrote:
| > "knowingly engages in conduct that aids or abets the
| performance or inducement of an abortion."
|
| I support the EFF broadly, but I don't see why the Educational
| Establishment should be in the abortion business.
| vkou wrote:
| For the same reason it should be in the reproductive health
| education business.
|
| Teenagers have sex, regardless of how much religious
| fundamentalists wish they wouldn't.
| tmpz22 wrote:
| We should really just stop teaching Biology, leave it to the
| priests
| OrvalWintermute wrote:
| > reproductive health education business
|
| You are conflating the education business around health
| decisions, with the abortion business. The two are not the
| same.
| sethherr wrote:
| If you believe the world is flat, you would likewise
| attempt to separate teaching physics from less potentially
| challenging subjects. I don't believe that makes physics
| not part of education.
|
| Just because you (or Texas) thinks abortion should be
| illegal, doesn't miraculously make the information not part
| of knowledge other people believe is educational.
| OrvalWintermute wrote:
| > Just because you (or Texas) thinks abortion should be
| illegal, doesn't miraculously make the information not
| part of knowledge other people believe is educational
|
| There is a vast difference between receiving (A) medical
| information, and (B) booking an appointment, going to a
| medical provider, paying/providing insurance information,
| obtaining/giving consent, getting anesthesia, receiving a
| medical procedure, and then aftercare.
|
| Just like I don't believe that commodity medical
| insurance should be paying for cosmetic plastic
| procedures not incurred as part of part of medical
| aftercare for a previous injury/accident/illness. If you
| decide you want to have lip filler to increase the
| fullness of your lips, and breast implants for cosmetic
| reasons purely, perhaps with a full facelift, then pay
| for it on your own.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| "Online education" is referring here to any organization
| hosting a website that provides education about abortion. It's
| not referring to the public school system, which as far as I
| know, does not host web sites with abortion resources.
| xrd wrote:
| Can state law like this affect someone who doesn't live in that
| state? If there are bounties for people, can someone from Texas
| sue me as an Oregonian if my blog says something positive about
| abortion? Would I need to avoid traveling to Texas to avoid
| prosecution?
| [deleted]
| 8eye wrote:
| it's gonna be interesting to see the lawsuits from this and covid
| mismanaged cases
| HelixEndeavor wrote:
| Really? A state law preventing abortion after 6 weeks will
| somehow restrict speech online about abortion... Sure.
| addicted wrote:
| The state law doesn't just prevent abortion.
|
| It also punishes "aiding or abetting" abortion.
|
| It's very easy to see how online education about abortion aids
| abortion.
| HelixEndeavor wrote:
| And if that information is hosted in another state? Or even
| another country?
|
| The only possible way this could apply or make sense is if
| all your abortion resources are hosted on servers in Texas,
| they all get taken down by the state, and then the state
| institutes China/Korea style IP bans to prevent you from
| visiting any other possible abortion info site.
|
| Which, considering Texas' entire legislation combined
| probably wouldn't be able to figure out how to write a Hello
| World program, I don't see happening.
| mattzito wrote:
| It's not only not limited to Texas, you can be sued if your
| acts aided or abetted an abortion IN Texas. It's also
| retroactive, so if you can show that someone used a website
| at any point to help them get an abortion, you have at
| least the nominal structure to sue. If you win, you win
| your legal costs plus 10k. If you lose, the defendant can't
| sue you back to recover the legal costs.
| kory wrote:
| The Supreme Court will rule that such an interpretation of this
| law is a violation of the first or sixth amendments. There is no
| other reasonable interpretation
| jimhefferon wrote:
| You seem not ot haved read a US newspaper lately. Chilling
| times.
| krapp wrote:
| The Supreme Court was stacked by Trump, let's not assume
| they'll be reasonable.
| moosey wrote:
| There are a number of people who are "originalists" on the
| court. People who believe that they have a special
| understanding of the founders. A belief that they, at a
| minimum, channel the ideals through some kind of unknowable
| means.
|
| To me, this is a combination of religious belief in some kind
| of righteousness of the founders, which is easily
| challengeable. Or it is some kind of belief that a person's
| internal thought process matches that of these mythical
| founders. I don't know the series of beliefs that is necessary
| for someone to hold the belief that they have this insight that
| other members of the court don't, but I assure you that the
| process that gets you to this belief is almost certainly
| emotional, not logical. It is not possible to read the mind of
| someone 200 years past, or how they would respond to modern
| society and scientific understanding. I do assure you that the
| belief that thinking one has the power to make that guess
| accurately is false.
|
| How many people on the bench hold this set of religious
| beliefs? And if one holds this set of beliefs, then do the
| amendments to the constitution that follow retain validity? Do
| they then have the ability to discern the mental patterns of
| the people who wrote those amendments too?
|
| With this and the shadow dockets, I strongly believe that the
| sense of validity of the courts will soon falter, and the
| societal costs will be great.
|
| I think that many rights encoded in the amendments will soon be
| gutted.
| gruez wrote:
| >There are a number of people who are "originalists" on the
| court. People who believe that they have a special
| understanding of the founders. A belief that they, at a
| minimum, channel the ideals through some kind of unknowable
| means.
|
| >How many people on the bench hold this set of religious
| beliefs?
|
| This seems to be a very uncharitable take on what originalism
| means. You're basically saying the people believe in the
| paranormal and derive their rulings based on a seance. The
| first sentence on wikipedia provides a far less biased view.
|
| >originalism is a concept regarding the interpretation of the
| Constitution that asserts that all statements in the
| constitution must be interpreted based on the original
| understanding "at the time it was adopted"
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Originalism
| iaw wrote:
| > This seems to be a very uncharitable take on what
| originalism means. You're basically saying the people
| believe in the paranormal and derive their rulings based on
| a seance. The first sentence on wikipedia provides a far
| less biased view.
|
| That much more charitable understanding gets thrown out the
| window when originalists are confronted with things that
| override their dogma and stretch them to come up with new
| legal interpretations to suit their desired moral outcome.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| Just because they set aside originalism when an outcome
| seems to offend their personal views more than they like,
| doesn't mean they think they have some special spiritual
| link to the founders.
| salawat wrote:
| What you call an originalist, is what I call a legal
| historian/linguist.
|
| The judiciary is not there to write law. Only to interpret
| what is written. An Originalist would do research on the era
| any piece of legislation, statute, or case law was decided to
| ensure that the meaning and intent of it through the lense of
| that time period is still honored.
|
| Without doing that, it's virtually guaranteed that within a
| few centuries, your language will have drifted so far away
| from the original intent or way of life rendered by the text
| would become meaningless.
|
| Think of it like getting the source code for a program that
| references external libraries. You can't run it now, because
| things have changed, among them, society's API's and symbols
| have as well.
|
| An Originalist is someone that goes back and attempts to
| reconstruct the "societal runtime" of that time to ensure
| we're not applying the statute in a way that may make sense
| from a modern point of view, but runs completely counter to
| the intent and spirit in which the law was actually made.
|
| It makes complete sense once you've been handed code that you
| can't find the source to the dependencies of and have to
| figure out a way to get it to work.
| [deleted]
| TrackerFF wrote:
| All this talk about Austin becoming the new SV - but then you see
| regressive laws like this getting pushed through. No thanks.
| thatguy0900 wrote:
| I half suspect this is because of Austin becoming the new sv.
| They don't want you guys, they want to stay red. This will
| scare a lot of people off.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Migration of people from SV to Austin will change the political
| landscape and stop stuff like this from being passed.
| twa999 wrote:
| counter point, laws like this are necessary to prevent this
| from happening.
| smt88 wrote:
| Probably not just SV, but it's true Texas is changing. It's a
| shame it didn't change faster.
| stephenhuey wrote:
| Houston underwent the greatest ethnic transformation of any
| major U.S. city in my lifetime. 1 out of 4 Houstonians is now
| foreign-born, and a lot of people have moved to Houston from
| the northern U.S. in the last decade. Austin has voted
| differently from a lot of Texas long before any SV influx,
| and they may help diversify voting in the state but not
| nearly as much as changes in other parts of Texas.
| wavefunction wrote:
| I tell people from outside Texas that Houston is the most
| diverse city in the US and they act like I'm shamelessly
| lying. With all the stuff there is about Texas government
| and politics to criticize, it's a very unique part of the
| country under significant tensions pulling the place and
| people in multiple contradictory directions.
| crazy_horse wrote:
| It used to frustrate me but now it just makes me laugh
| when I see people talk about Dallas, Houston like they
| aren't two of the more diverse and largest metros in the
| country.
| azinman2 wrote:
| Yet when my Indian friends were getting a housing tour in
| Dallas, they were told how diverse the area is: they have
| Protestant, Baptist, and Catholic Churches in this
| neighborhood!
|
| That didn't impress them much (in fact it did the
| opposite) and they stayed in SF.
| crazy_horse wrote:
| It certainly depends on the area. I'm within about 2
| miles of a Buddhist template and multiple mosques. There
| are another sixty churches in the same area, but it is
| what it is.
| [deleted]
| Robotbeat wrote:
| I'm not sure ethnic change translates into progressive
| social policies. Latino immigrants tend to be socially
| conservative. (This is why Republicans hyperventilating
| about immigrants changing the political landscape should
| calm themselves down and Democrats shouldn't take anything
| for granted.)
|
| SV immigrants probably a lot more socially progressive.
| dctoedt wrote:
| Scene: Houston, wedding-anniversary dinner in a French
| restaurant a few years ago. The server looked faintly Asian
| but sounded faintly French.
|
| Me: Are you Vietnamese by any chance?
|
| Her: No, I'm from Kazakhstan.
|
| Me: That's so interesting; I didn't know we had Kazakhs
| here in Houston.
|
| Her: Yes, there's about 5,000 of us.
|
| I was gobsmacked, as our Brit friends might say.
| dctoedt wrote:
| Now if the blue cities in Texas can just somehow get rid of
| the conservative-rigged gerrymandering that gives the red
| rural areas such disproportionate power in state
| government.
| quest88 wrote:
| Blame packing and cracking voting districts.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Texas is close enough to flipping blue that it wouldn't take a
| whole lot. A few more votes in a few more districts.
| rbanffy wrote:
| Shouldn't we build an app to make that easier? The data is
| public, just focus on the districts where the voting was
| closest and connect that to Zillow or something similar. You
| can't guarantee results, of course, but we can point people
| in the right direction to change the state.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| I don't think so. Folks shouldn't sacrifice quality of life
| (moving to rural areas versus areas they might desire more)
| to tip the state faster than it will already tip. It's just
| a matter of time, governed by the birth, immigration
| (domestic and foreign), and death rate.
|
| It's just a matter of time (I don't say that lightly, I
| have made my donations to support relief efforts from
| recent policy decisions).
| kodah wrote:
| > Folks shouldn't sacrifice quality of life (moving to
| rural areas versus areas they might desire more) to tip
| the state faster than it will already tip
|
| Personally, I don't think "quality of life" is the word
| that should be used to distinctualize rural and urban
| living. I've lived in both and had a quality life in
| both, each came with their tradeoffs and sharp costs I
| had to manage.
| rbanffy wrote:
| The website can't force anyone to make the move, but can
| help with deciding where to move to in order to improve
| quality of life for everyone in the state.
|
| It's also a solid investment to purchase real estate in a
| place you know quality of life will improve.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Help yourself to the data:
| https://ballotpedia.org/Pivot_Counties_in_Texas
|
| Sort by counties in descending order closest to ~50% blue
| for targeting relocation suggestions, turning counties
| that flip solid blue. Best bang for your buck imho.
| Probably cheaper housing too, close enough to urban cores
| for hybrid remote, far enough out to be affordable. A
| couple days worth of CRUD/GIS/data science work if I had
| to hazard a guess.
| rbanffy wrote:
| Thank you. That's an amazing resource. That combined with
| the number of votes it'd take to make the district flip
| would be perfect.
| wavefunction wrote:
| These regressive voters are mostly concentrated in
| suburban environments. It's not a huge ordeal for most
| people to live in suburban Austin or Dallas or San
| Antonio or etc.
| Telemakhos wrote:
| Is deliberately facilitating demographic change for
| political purposes an ethical use of technology? I imagine
| there would be some moral outrage if the people of the
| pivot districts learned that SV types (who may well not
| even live in Texas) were collaborating to enact political
| change by targeted migration. Is this not basically
| political colonization?
| nonameiguess wrote:
| The Free State Project did this to the town of Grafton,
| New Hampshire, invading to turn it into the country's
| first libertarian majority city so they could take over
| the government. And yeah, the locals were not too happy
| about it. One of the reasons they chose Grafton is there
| were no zoning laws, so they could move in quickly
| without having to build housing, which meant many of them
| were living in the woods, and since they had no
| experience doing that and kept leaving food out, the town
| became overrun with bears.
| krapp wrote:
| Political districts in the US are already designed to
| favor specific parties and incumbents, the playing field
| is already not neutral.
|
| This seems like little more than playing by the
| established rules of the game, which favors targeted
| demographics and swing districts over the broad populace.
| Telemakhos wrote:
| The question is not whether the playing field is neutral
| or not through the actions of others, but whether "we"
| (tech) should undertake to change that playing field
| further. What right do "we" have to interfere in other
| peoples' lives from afar?
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Wouldn't giving the majority its fair share of political
| voice, in a democratic republic, be a net positive?
| erik_seaberg wrote:
| The point of a federal system is to let a minority form
| the majority in a particular place and live under
| policies they want. Why should they accept the outcome of
| democracy and open borders if we chase them around the
| map and prevent that everywhere?
|
| I am not saying _I_ want to live under this absurd law,
| but I suppose people do and they are not going to just
| disappear.
| rbanffy wrote:
| Since the president is not elected by direct vote, the
| decisions in some states carry much greater impact and
| influence than others. A tool like this would help make
| the result more reflective of the desired outcomes for
| the larger population.
|
| And you are not interfering from afar - people need to
| move in order to vote. We can only guide these people,
| however, and help them find the places they can make the
| difference they want to make.
| krapp wrote:
| We have the same rights as anyone in a civil society to
| try to effect political change in our favor, within the
| bounds of the law.
|
| All that's being suggested here is that if people move
| from SV, or wherever, to Texas that they vote their
| conscience, and where they could reside so that vote
| could be the most effective. It isn't interference, it's
| participation.
| post_break wrote:
| Source? Because every time I've seen the polls the large
| cities might be turning purplish, but once you get outside
| the city limits they are all red.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Off the top of my head, Ballotpedia is among the more
| accessible. I'm not aware of a specific dataset, though I
| suspect that exists.
|
| https://ballotpedia.org/Texas_election_results,_2020
|
| Presidential margin was 631,221 votes.
|
| Texas House balance is 83/67. Majority is 150/2 + 1 = 76
| seats. Minority needs a gain of 9.
|
| https://ballotpedia.org/Texas_House_of_Representatives_elec
| t...
|
| Texas Senate is 13/18, majority is |31/2| + 1 = 16 seats.
| Minority needs a gain of 3.
|
| https://ballotpedia.org/Texas_State_Senate_elections,_2020
|
| Unfortunately, Ballotpedia doesn't give vote counts /
| majority per race.
| klyrs wrote:
| If you thought that Austin was progressive but weren't aware
| that voting in Austin is futile, here's your wakeup call.
| smt88 wrote:
| Austin has dozens of elected officials below the state level.
| Voting is never futile. Vote even if you don't think you'll
| win because that's what motivates other people to vote, and
| it's the only thing you can do to delay having to actually
| fight an authoritarian regime.
| vkou wrote:
| > Austin has dozens of elected officials below the state
| level.
|
| Which the party of states' rights will happily run over.
|
| Republican-controlled state legislatures have no issue with
| overturning local government legislature to impose their
| agenda.
| smt88 wrote:
| There are hundreds of local policies that states don't
| touch, including things related to collecting and
| spending taxes.
|
| If everyone in Texas voted, it might have avoided this
| situation. You vote when it's hopeless until it isn't
| anymore.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| hirundo wrote:
| Why is particularized injury needed for standing to sue in a
| civil environmental case, but not under this abortion law? Is
| that just a federal rule? If you did have to show that you were
| harmed by a particular act of the defendant it would greatly
| limit the scope of such laws.
| klyrs wrote:
| This is the part that baffles me the most about the law. As far
| as I know, if two people are harmed by your action they can
| each sue you independently. What's to stop a lawyer from
| finding an already-settled lawsuit, reproducing the evidence
| from public record, and trying it again?
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| Not a lawyer, but it seems like state law can create standing
| in state courts:
|
| https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/standing
| wavefunction wrote:
| I believe that's for criminal offenses, which this Texas
| legislation does not contain. I am not a lawyer, just what I
| read from actual lawyers. Qui tam lawsuits allow a private
| citizen to bring suit on behalf of the government but I don't
| believe this legislation qualifies under those standards.
| Y_Y wrote:
| I think it's unfair that they use the term "anti-choice" for the
| people typically known as "pro-life". "Anti-choice" can equally
| well apply to people who are "anti-life".
|
| (This is supposed to be clearly tongue-in-cheek.)
| [deleted]
| wavefunction wrote:
| I call them Pro-Rapists. They've done more for Rapist rights
| than any other group I can think of, short of the Catholic
| Church itself.
| pope_meat wrote:
| You're going to have to clarify, because right now it seems
| like you're suggesting that "anti-life" folks position is
| "force abortion even if the person doesn't want it" and I don't
| believe that is the case. Or do you mean something else?
| Y_Y wrote:
| Is there anyone who really calls themselves "anti-life"? I
| think such a label would have to have the meaning you
| suggest, if it were consistent with the others.
| rbanffy wrote:
| Eugenics was a trendy thing in the US for quite a long time.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States
| baldeagle wrote:
| I'm not sure I follow, are you saying that there is a 'anti-
| life' group that believes women should be required to have
| state required abortions? I'm not being saracastic; I would
| like you to elaborate on the 'anti-life / anti-choice' group.
| Y_Y wrote:
| I'm being facetious, but with a purpose. I think all the
| labels people use here are spin. I want to underline the
| absurdity, by making the pedantic point that banning
| abortions isn't the only way to take away someone's choice.
|
| Everyone likes life, and everyone likes having choices. It's
| disingenuous to assert that that's what the debate is about.
| baldeagle wrote:
| I think there is a debate of when 'life' happens. And that
| more or less everyone is against removing life that has
| already happened (directly, not in an underfunding school
| nutrition and living wages sorta way). So the side that
| believes life happens at conception is literally removing
| choice from those that believe it happens at birth.
|
| Ironically, many advocates of life at conception also are
| against sexual education and universal birth control, or in
| favor of promoting that abstaining from sexual relations
| should be the solution. This context makes it more about
| governing how women make choice regarding their bodies (in
| sexual manners and in conception manners) and largely
| insult men from those same consequences.
|
| Please note that the law makes not allowance for incest or
| rape- so if one was a victim of these crimes, they would
| still be required to carry and deliver the child. A child
| in the case of incest that is likely to be genetically
| mutated such to lead to a life of suffering (for the child
| and those caring for them).
| Y_Y wrote:
| I wouldn't disagree with any of that, and I hope I didn't
| imply that I would. You correctly mention that people who
| oppose abortion often also oppose allowing some different
| choices, if this is what's commonly understood by the
| term "pro-choice" then I was mistaken and find the
| terminology confusing.
| mindslight wrote:
| Life starts before conception. "Life" isn't a good
| standard. Mold growing on bread is alive. We end life all
| the time, eg by cutting your lawn. What you're looking
| for is sentience or something like that.
| epakai wrote:
| Anti-natalists are against childbearing, but I'm not sure if
| they ever argue for forced abortions. They might actively
| encourage abortions whereas many pro-choice advocates would
| want to reduce abortions while keeping them available.
| Spivak wrote:
| I mean it's pretty much always a mistake to use your political
| opponent's framing. It's a variant of accepting the premise of
| the question.
|
| I would absolutely expect someone who is pro-life to describe
| people who oppose them as anti-life. That's their chosen
| framing of the issue. Pro-life sounds good -- who could be anti
| life?
|
| Same with pro-choice -- who could be anti-choice?
|
| It's the reason why you don't see people using the term "race
| realists" and just calling them racists.
| commoner wrote:
| The Wall Street Journal recommends using "abortion rights"
| instead of "pro-choice", and "antiabortion" instead of "pro-
| life":
|
| https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/vol-23-no-1-hyperbole-01557...
| rbanffy wrote:
| I like to call them "pro-birth", because once the kid is born,
| they immediately cease to be interested in the new life's
| rights or welfare.
| crazy_horse wrote:
| I know people that worked at the pregnancy centers that get
| mocked. Those workers will often stay in contact with them
| well after the child is is born.
|
| Serious pro-lifers will dedicate their lives to it, they care
| about the babies more than you can know.
|
| This particular center was located in a Hispanic community,
| the church full of working-class people would give away hours
| and hours of their time and money to help all of them.
| philjohn wrote:
| I'd go one further - "pro forced birth"
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