Now Texas has come up with a mechanism to end-run the federal courts — or so it believes. The state’s new law bars abortion once there is a “detectable” fetal heartbeat. But it prohibits state government officials from enforcing the ban. Instead, it outsources that job to private individuals — antiabortion vigilantes — who are deputized to go to state court to sue anyone who performs a supposedly illegal abortion or “aids or abets” such a procedure.
Their reward? A bounty of at least $10,000, plus legal costs. Imagine what that might mean in Texas, the state that brought you Roe v. Wade.
This is harassment waiting to happen. Anyone opposed to abortion could sue anyone — the relatives of a woman seeking an abortion, a counselor who phones a clinic to make an appointment, any doctor or nurse involved in the procedure — anywhere in the state at any time. If the law takes effect as scheduled on Sept. 1, the ensuing risk and chaos would shut down abortion providers in the state. Which is, of course, the goal.
It is also privatization with a purpose: to prevent abortion advocates from using the federal courts to enforce their constitutional rights. If only private parties, not state officials, are involved in enforcing the law, its proponents claim, there is no hook for federal courts to intervene. Clever, but — let’s hope — wrong.
Ruth Marcus, in today's Post. (DC, not NY)
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