Texas SB-8 Enjoined By Federal District Court, In Austin Tonight...

This unconstitutional "law" will no longer be in effect -- nor return, any time soon.

Ultimately, the Supremes will have to rule here. But for now, Texas doctors retain the right to follow their patients' wishes, without interference from bounty hunters like the moron at right.

TRIGGER WARNING -- some of the first twenty or so pages of the opinion may be emotionally difficult reading -- it involves empirical but first hand discussions of trends in intimate partner violence and incest in Texas. But it needs to be seen. Here's a bit of the 113 pages:

. . .A person’s right under the Constitution to choose to obtain an abortion prior to fetal viability is well established. Fully aware that depriving its citizens of this right by direct state action would be flagrantly unconstitutional, the State contrived an unprecedented and transparent statutory scheme to do just that. The State created a private cause of action by which individuals with no personal interest in, or connection to, a person seeking an abortion would be incentivized to use the state’s judicial system, judges, and court officials to interfere with the right to an abortion. Rather than subjecting its law to judicial review under the Constitution, the State deliberately circumvented the traditional process. It drafted the law with the intent to preclude review by federal courts that have the obligation to safeguard the very rights the statute likely violates. . . .

Approximately one quarter of women in the United States will have an abortion by the age of forty-five. (Id. at 8). In Texas alone, providers performed more than 50,000 abortions last year. . . . “Abortion is also one of the safest medical procedures. Fewer than 1% of pregnant people who obtain abortions experience a serious complication. And even fewer abortion patients -- only approximately 0.3% -- experience a complication that requires hospitalization. Abortion is far safer than pregnancy and childbirth. The risk of death from carrying a pregnancy to term is approximately 14 times greater than the risk of death associated with abortion. In addition, complications such as blood transfusions, infection, and injury to other organs are all more likely to occur with a full-term pregnancy than with an abortion.” (Gilbert Decl., Dkt. 8-2, at 9). . . .

“Many Texans obtain abortions because they are unable to meet their basic needs. Pregnant patients who seek abortion care are often low-income and below the federal poverty line. 14.7% of working Texans live in poverty, and 34.5% are low income. This number is even higher for women of color; 19.1% of Black women and 20.5% of Latina women live in poverty in Texas. These patients are in dire financial circumstances and often struggle to pay for needs like housing, food, and medical care. As a result, these patients believe that obtaining an abortion is the best decision for themselves and for their families.” (Gilbert Decl., Dkt. 8-2, at 10).

“The majority of pregnant people who have abortions are already parents: sixty-one percent of pregnant patients who obtain abortions already have at least one child. They do not desire -- and . . . may not be able to afford or properly care for -- another child. . . . Other patients seek abortions because having another child is not right for them and their families at the present time. Sixty-six percent of abortion patients intend to have at least one child in the future. Some Texans become pregnant when they are young or still in school and want to wait to have children later in life. Some become pregnant with a partner with whom they do not wish to share a child. Others may be managing their own unrelated health issues, such as substance abuse disorders, and may determine that having a child would not be the best choice for them in their current condition.” (Id. at 10–11).

“For patients who have been abused, being pregnant often subjects them to increased surveillance and decreased control over their lives. Being pregnant also may make it more likely that their abusers will perpetrate more physical violence against them. Terminating the pregnancy may be critical for their physical health and psychological well-being.” Id. at 11. A provider in Oklahoma credibly relates his experiences with survivors of rape seeking abortion in his clinics because the medical procedure is no longer available to them in Texas: “One of the most heart-wrenching cases I have seen recently was of a Texas minor who had been raped by a family member and traveled (accompanied by her guardian) all the way from Galveston, Texas -- a 7- to 8-hour drive, one way -- to get her abortion in Oklahoma because she was more than six weeks pregnant and could not get an abortion in Texas. And this patient is not the only sexual assault survivor from Texas that I have treated recently. I provided an abortion to another woman from Texas who had been raped and could not get an abortion in Texas because of S.B. 8. She was upset and furious that she could not get an abortion close to home and in her own state. She had to figure out how to take extra time off from work to make the trip to Oklahoma, as well as find childcare for her children. I know of at least one other patient from Texas on our schedule for this upcoming week who has indicated that their pregnancy was a result of sexual assault. . . .” (Yap Decl., Dkt. 8-9, at 9). . . .

[Texas] has requested, in the event the Court preliminarily enjoins enforcement of S.B. 8, that the Court stay any injunction until the State has the opportunity to seek appellate review. The State has forfeited the right to any such accommodation by pursuing an unprecedented and aggressive scheme to deprive its citizens of a significant and well-established constitutional right. From the moment S.B. 8 went into effect, women have been unlawfully prevented from exercising control over their lives in ways that are protected by the Constitution. That other courts may find a way to avoid this conclusion is theirs to decide; this Court will not sanction one more day of this offensive deprivation of such an important right. . . .

It is raw -- and it is cruel. Texas seems to think the only life to consider is the one that has NOT achieved viability by any stretch of any imagination. And it seeks to substitute the state as the arbiter, as opposed to the involved humans. That is. . . disgusting, from a moral perspective. This "law" will not stand. Full-stop.

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