Lubbock County, Texas, joins a group of other rural Texas counties that have voted to ban women from using their roads to seek abortions.
This comes after six cities and counties in Texas have passed abortion-related bans, out of nine that have considered them. However, this ordinance makes Lubbock the biggest jurisdiction yet to pass restrictions on abortion-related transportation.
During Monday’s meeting, the Lubbock County Commissioners Court passed an ordinance banning abortion, abortion-inducing drugs and travel for abortion in the unincorporated areas of Lubbock County, declaring Lubbock County a “Sanctuary County for the Unborn.”
The ordinance is part of a continued strategy by conservative activists to further restrict abortion since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade as the ordinances are meant to bolster Texas’ existing abortion ban, which allows private citizens to sue anyone who provides or “aids or abets” an abortion after six weeks of pregnancy.
The ordinance, which was introduced to the court last Wednesday, was passed by a vote of 3-0 with commissioners Terence Kovar, Jason Corley and Jordan Rackler, all Republicans, voting to pass the legislation while County Judge Curtis Parrish, Republican, and Commissioner Gilbert Flores, Democrat, abstained from the vote.
Everything else aside, that’s about as clear a violation of the Commerce Clause as you can get.
The inability of states to regulate interstate commerce was settled by the courts in 1824.
The same laws that allows firearms to be shipped through states where they’re illegal protects abortion-seekers on Texas roads
Nothing is “settled” with the current Supreme Court.
SCOTUS allowed the abortion bounty law SB8 to stand before Roe was overturned. It was clearly unconstitutional. So, they’re just expanding on it to the next logical steps.
Something something it’s not commerce because reasons.
Nevermind that the Commerce Clause has been cited to give the federal government authority to prohibit activities that are neither commerce nor inter-state, such as growing cannabis for personal use on your own property.
Schroedinger’s commerce. It’s commerce only when it’s convenient for prohibitionists.
The federal government doesn’t outlaw abortion, so they can’t use the Commerce Clause to enforce abortion restrictions enacted by the states.
However, the issues you cite with them being bullies with the commerce clause are centered on authority granted through Gibbons.
Gibbons was specifically about states trying to enforce laws (specifically state-granted steamboat monopolies) within their borders that had a direct impact on commerce within another state. The Supreme Court declared that a violation of the commerce clause because only the Federal Government can regulate interstate commerce.
Texas passing laws prohibiting travel to another state to seek abortions (which are federally legal) could only be allowed by SCOTUS by overturning Gibbons, which would be absolutely devastating.
That would be by far the most-impactful reversal in the Court’s history, and it can’t be overstated how much of a grenade it would be. Everybody would lose, and the GOP’s owners more than anyone else.
If SCOTUS were insistent (and consistent) that only the federal government had the power to regulate interstate commerce, yet this Texas jurisdiction is trying to do just that, wouldn’t that logically be in violation of the Commerce Clause and SCOTUS would have to strike down?
I was arguing that SCOTUS isn’t consistent on this, but pretend they were.
They’d have trouble ignoring this one. This is isn’t tangentially related to interstate commerce.
The law is explicitly about preventing people from passing through a territory to engage in legal commerce in another state. Violation of the Commerce Clause isn’t a byproduct of the law - it’s the sole intent.
IANAL: how exactly is this going to get overturned? The courts have already gotten rid of offender observer standing so the only way would be if this is actually enforced at which point the Supreme Court could simply allow the appeals court ruling stand.