Texas just outlawed all abortions after six weeks after a woman’s last menstruation. They knew this violated the US Constitution under Roe v Wade. To avoid a federal judge blocking the law, Texas will not enforce it. Instead, the law deputizes all citizens – even those of us from outside Texas—to enforce the law—to rat out anyone who performs an abortion or who provides assistance. You don’t have to know the people involved or have any personal connection to them. If you win the case, you get $10,000. If you lose, the defendants are not allowed to recoup their legal costs. The radicalization of the public to attack its own members is perhaps more sinister than the abortion ban itself.
Texas wrote the law this way to circumnavigate constitutional review– because no one can sue them. In the US, you cannot sue to block an unconstitutional law, you can only sue those enforcing it to stop them from enforcing it. Texas is seeking to avoid that by delegating enforcement to the masses, each of whom would have to be sued one at a time. Imagining this law as a model for future policy is like recalling Black Mirror episodes. Could California offer cash rewards to citizens who report unvaccinated people or people with assault rifles?
The intent of Texas’ law is to drive abortion providers out of business. Basically, any person in the country can start suing abortion providers whether or not they’ve provided an abortion and start running up their legal costs. With the ink barely dry on the bill, a questionable lawsuit has already happened, though a district judge has blocked it.
Absent the will to challenge the courts directly, Texas has unleashed its citizens against a marginalized group: women. This is a time-honored tradition of white male hegemony in the United States and in the English colonies that preceded it. Citizen militias, operating with the cover of law, burned witches, formed slave patrols, and massacred Native Americans. One can add the deputized law officers that work for Union Pacific and other railroads that have a history of beating the shit out of people with impunity. Or the union thugs hired by Nixon to beat Vietnam protestors.
I’ll speak with regard to Native Americans. White citizens were regularly paid to do the real dirty work of genocide. The first scalp bounties were offered in New England in 1697, modeled after cash rewards for wolf hides. Many of the most infamous massacres during the ethnic cleansing of “Manifest Destiny” were not done by the US military, but by vigilante groups of white settlers operating under a thin veneer of legal authority. True cowards, they usually targeted peaceful encampments. These include the Sand Creek Massacre of peaceful Cheyenne and Arapahoe in 1864, the Camp Grant Massacre of peaceful Apaches by the Tucson Committee for Public Safety in 1871, and numerous horrific massacres during the genocide of California Natives in the 1850s, in which state coffers reimbursed white 49’ers. The legal cover given to TigerSwan at Standing Rock is another example of state-sanctioned thuggery.
But this is a thug nation, where white men make the rules and the letter of the law can be twisted to avoid the spirit of justice. Abortion bounty hunters can now turn Texas into a legal shit show. Rapists can now sue their victims and win ten grand. Neighbors are incentivized to spy on each other, checking the garbage for tampons. They’ve already set up online tip-lines. Women may need to photo-document their miscarriages, which will be suspicious and require documentation.
The US Supreme Court could have easily seen through the legal charade of Texas’s law and blocked it, but instead they allowed it to take effect. SCOTUS should be recognized for its history, past and present, as one of the most oppressive, racist, and misogynist courts in the history of the world. European courts are not as dependent on political appointees. From Johnson v M’Intosh in 1823 to approving Trump’s Muslim ban, SCOTUS is a joke, filled with extremists who repeatedly accept the most twisted legal contrivances as legitimate… when it comes to white males.
For white allies (e.g. moderate Democrats), it’s time to play dirty or stop whining. Technically, millions of us can sue the governor of Texas, all the Republican senators, and all the church pastors who supported this, accusing them of supporting abortions. These suits will be dismissed, but they’ll incur legal costs in the meantime. Add my name; I’ll file a suit. Technically, the US Congress can add more seats to the US Supreme Court and pack it with functional adults. Such actions would turn the Texas law and US politics into a giant game. Game on.
Memories of the People 