HIDDEN Consequences
How Texas has Legalized Extortion!
I thought the cruelty of torture was outlawed until I read the Texas abortion bill. Then there is a Guilty until Proven Innocent provision.
Synopsis
The abortion bill may have opened a huge Pandora’s box by legalizing extortion for an individual abortion, plus many other things. There is no reason the worst provisions in that bill can’t be written into every other law. First, a definition:
extortion (noun) the practice of obtaining something, especially money, through force or threats.
Definitions from Oxford Languages
Then, to meet the “the equal protection of the laws” portion of the 14th Amendment, they need to expand the extortion rights to all people for all actions.
Different types of extortion
Typically, the extortionist is after money, but extortion can also be used to force actions. The foundation of extortion is making threats.
Here, the extortionist may receive up to $10,000. The defendant will always be forced to pay, at least the legal fees, even if they win.
I can foresee a whole new, sleazy syndicate forming, encouraged by the State of Texas, just to collect the $10,000 rewards.
Torture
Torture can take many forms. Most common is physical violence causing great pain. Mental torture can cause people to break down and do things they normally would not do.
Mental torture can lodge itself in the person’s memory and inflict pain every day for the rest of their life.
The law requires these actions if a woman must have an abortion to save her life:
SECTION 8.(a)(4)(B) the physician who is to perform or induce the abortion … displays the sonogram images
(D) the physician who is to perform or induce the
abortion … makes audible the heart auscultation for the pregnant woman to hearAbortion or die is distressing enough, but having to listen to your baby's heartbeat might traumatize the poor woman for the rest of her life, a form of mental torture.
What a sadistic section of the bill.
Pregnancy - a new definition
Most people understand that a pregnancy starts when the sperm and egg get together, but not the State of Texas.
SECTION 3, SUBCHAPTER H, (5) “Pregnancy” means the human female reproductive condition that: (C) is calculated from the first day of the woman’s last menstrual period.They claim in part (A) that it begins with fertilization, but that can’t happen under (C), which may be days earlier, so the (C) timeframe overrides (A).
By definition, a pregnancy starts with the beginning of the cycle.
Guilty until Proven Innocent provision & the Burden of Distance
The law provides that a private citizen can sue anybody who assists in or facilitates an abortion. Anybody is a large population and every accusation has to be defended.
Sec. 171.208., (f-1) The defendant has the burden of proving an affirmative defense under Subsection (f)(1) or (2) by a preponderance of the evidence.The defendant has the burden of proving that they are innocent. In addition, the suit can be filed anywhere in Texas and the defendant can be in another distant location.
Sec. 171.210., (a), (4) the county of residence for the claimant if the claimant is a natural person residing in this state.
(b) … any one of the venues described by Subsection (a), the action may not be transferred to a different venue without the written consent of all parties.So, someone in Beaumont, Texas, could file suit in the Beaumont court against someone in El Paso, 827 miles away, and the defendant would have to fight the case in Beaumont. What a huge stress and cost.
Some articles claim that anyone in the entire U.S. can file suit, but I could not find anything in the bill supporting that claim.
Encourages Self-Abortions
Since pregnancy starts with the cycle, if a new cycle begins, obviously an abortion was performed in-between. If the woman didn’t go to a doctor or back-street abortionist, they must have performed it on themselves.
Everyone should perform surgery on themselves!
Since the woman performed the abortion, that means that anybody can sue the woman. So,
Every woman who has a menstrual period can be sued by anyone in the state of Texas!
This just puts the entire law into the proper perspective.
Overflow
The 6-week time frame is ridiculous, but that is just one of the many horrors of the Texas Anti-Abortion bill and keeps it from violating the 13th Amendment. The things I listed are far worse, starting with using the courts for political goals via civil suits.
Note Jan 21, 2021: Since, by definition, the pregnancy starts at the beginning of the period, the woman may have only 1 or 2 weeks to find a doctor and get an abortion from the time she knows she is pregnant.
Such lawsuits are pure harassment of the poor and middle class. Of course, the rich will go to another state or country and buy off the politicians, like they always do.
However, lawsuits have always been there for people who have sustained an injury. This bill expands that capability to anyone who has hurt feelings, even if they were not injured or directly impacted.
Failure to expand such lawsuits to everything would be discrimination — we certainly don’t want that!
To be consistent, Texas needs to pass another law allowing anybody to sue anybody else over hurt feelings.
Severance — Court Decisions
The bill contains clauses that make court challenges even more difficult.
SECTION 10. Every provision in this Act and every application of the provision in this Act are severable from each other. If any provision or application of any provision in this Act to any person, group of persons, or circumstance is held by a court to be invalid, the invalidity does not affect the other provisions or applications of this Act.Every single section of the bill must be challenged and thrown out by the court. If a section is not explicitly included in a ruling, it remains in effect.
Discriminatory
Notice that men have no responsibility.
That could have been changed by adding the requirement that DNA samples be taken at birth. Then, any man who gets a woman pregnant, aborted or full-term, would pay 20% of their income for 18 years in child support.
Of course, nothing like that would occur to the men and the conflict-of-interest lawyers in the legislature.
Conclusion
These are just a few highlights from this remarkably cruel bill, reminiscent of the Middle Ages. It is one of the most invasive and controlling bills I’ve seen in a long time.
Those who can’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. This bill is a huge power grab that may be expanded to other bills. Abortion is just a secondary issue to incite the masses. The bill:
- Redefined “Pregnancy” and its starting point. If the government can do that, then they can redefine anything to their purposes
- Institutes a new version of the vigilantes
- Reverses the “Innocent until Proven Guilty” doctrine
- Only the 6-week cutoff point, nearly impossible to attain, prevents it from violating the 13th amendment on slavery
- Reinstates torture
- Legalizes extortion
Some of the points in this article may sound like nonsense, but the entire bill is nonsense. If I came to this conclusion about its main points, some lawyers will, too, and exploit it.
Until then, the best thing that could happen is that the Supreme Court tosses this bill out in its entirety.
Disclaimer. This article reflects the opinion of the author based on reading the Texas Abortion bill and is not intended as legal advice. If you need advice, you should consult an attorney.
References & Related Articles
- Father is immediately identifiable and pays support 18 years no matter what
- Bounty hunters. The new law has a huge reach for the $10,000 bounty
I see two-dozen injury lawyer ads on TV per day. Imagine the flood of ads with legalized extortion.
SB8 Bill Text from LegiScan
https://legiscan.com/TX/text/SB8/id/2352120
