• Flying Squid@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    56
    ·
    1 year ago

    Let’s say they get this through the courts and are able to do it. How will they do it? Checkpoints at the border with mandatory pregnancy tests for all women? If you’re getting an abortion for a non-medically necessary issue, you’re probably not pregnant enough to be showing yet.

    • TechyDad@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      57
      ·
      1 year ago

      I think this is a civil prosecution like Texas’ abortion ban. So say you and a friend of yours live in Texas. Your friend was raped and just found out that she’s 7 weeks pregnant. You help her get to a blue state for an abortion.

      At some point, your friend tells her mother who happens to tell me. I sue you and your friend to collect thousands of dollars.

      Now even if I’m unsuccessful, you still need to deal with the time, money, and stress that a civil trial brings. And if you’re found to be in violation of that law, you could be out thousands of dollars. This is all intended to make people reluctant to help pregnant women. It’s a cruel law designed to scare people into being crueler to others.

        • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          1 year ago

          Only if you’re trying to overturn one of these laws, see Whole Women’s Health v Jackson. Which despite what’s claimed doesn’t protect SB8 style laws from judicial review, but rather protects them from such review before they go into effect and someone actually sues under them.

          Any abortion travel ban is either going to immediately collapse under the commerce clause (leaving the state to have an abortion is necessarily an act of interstate commerce and federal government is the one with power over interstate commerce) or use Texas SB8-style civil enforcement, which means no one can challenge it until someone actually sues using it - at which point I’d get some activist group to make a fucking showing of taking women across state lines for abortions to bait a lawsuit under the travel ban so as to be able to challenge it.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        16
        ·
        1 year ago

        It only takes one or two unsuccessful suits for this to not even be taken up by the courts in the future though, right? And I don’t know how you can prove someone had an abortion out of state.

    • RotaryKeyboard@lemmy.ninja
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      34
      ·
      1 year ago

      Laws like this are designed to be deterrents. You don’t need to catch very many offenders with checkpoints as long as you can create enough fear about the consequences of breaking the law to keep people from traveling to get an abortion.

    • SpeakinTelnet
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      18
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      I can’t imagine anything good coming out of asking that many women if they’re pregnant when they’re not. That’s the kind of mistake you make once, not make it a full time job!