this post was submitted on 06 Dec 2023
131 points (95.8% liked)

Health - Resources and discussion for everything health-related

2198 readers
326 users here now

Health: physical and mental, individual and public.

Discussions, issues, resources, news, everything.

See the pinned post for a long list of other communities dedicated to health or specific diagnoses. The list is continuously updated.

Nothing here shall be taken as medical or any other kind of professional advice.

Commercial advertising is considered spam and not allowed. If you're not sure, contact mods to ask beforehand.

Linked videos without original description context by OP to initiate healthy, constructive discussions will be removed.

Regular rules of lemmy.world apply. Be civil.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

A pregnant Texas woman who says her unborn baby has a genetic condition and carrying the child to term could threaten her life filed suit against the state Tuesday, asking a court to declare she has the right to terminate the pregnancy.

Kate Cox said the state’s current abortion ban puts her husband and her gynecologist at legal risk if she has an abortion in Texas.

The lawsuit is believed to be one of the first attempts in the country by an individual seeking a court-ordered abortion since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, according to the New York Times.

top 12 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] spacecowboy@sh.itjust.works 34 points 9 months ago

Reminder that Texas sucks. Republicans suck too. They’re a pox on America.

[–] qooqie@lemmy.world 18 points 9 months ago (5 children)

Why even try to go through with a lawsuit? Wouldn’t it be cheaper and easier and safer time wise to go to a state that allows for abortions currently?

[–] PlatinumSf@pawb.social 27 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Unfortunately Texas’s specific version of the law not only criminalizes such actions, but also allocates public funding to pay ransom to those that tip the government off to them.

[–] qooqie@lemmy.world 11 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Instead of a war on drugs they’ve really pivoted to a war on women and the poor. How wonderful!

If you’re wondering why I say poor, it’s because abortion bans will always impact poor individuals who can’t afford to travel to other states safely. Rich people will never feel the effects of it

[–] buddhabound@lemmy.world 21 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

During the most recent challenge to Texas's anti-abortion laws (in Texas Supreme Court) there was an argument made by the state that women should go to the court and ask for the court to allow the abortion on a one-by-one basis. Basically, the state argued that women should do exactly what this suit is doing. The plaintiffs in the other case said it's not reasonable or practical to do, and so now someone has brought a suit that basically puts this argument right back in front of the court while it's deliberating whether or not that is a reasonable course of action.

Further, the TX anti-abortion law (SB-8, iirc), also gives private citizens the right to sue anyone who assists (even with planning or transportation for an abortion) for $10,000 each. The current suit is also asking the court to protect all of the people involved, from the doctor to the woman's husband, from those types of lawsuits.

Further, many border towns in TX have made it illegal at the local level to use the local jurisdiction's roads/infrastructure to travel out of state for an abortion. This suit also will need the court to prevent those local jurisdictions from taking action against any of the involved parties if it rules she must travel out of state.

Even further, most of these laws in Texas have a 10 year retroactive lookback/statute of limitations for the $10,000 "bounty", so they will need the court to rule on her case to not only protect them today, but for at least the next 10 years. This court protection may need to be potentially forever in case the state decides that there is no statute of limitation, as there would be if abortion was classified as "murder".

And the state argued that women should just go individually to court on an as-needed basis to get all of these details worked out any time she needed necessary reproductive healthcare. This is a ridiculous argument.

Some women can't even afford to go out of state, or there are too many barriers to be protected so they can return home afterward. It's even sillier to expect people to be able to hire lawyers and bring a case before state courts within days of finding out a pregnancy isn't viable. "Just go somewhere else" doesn't work in Texas, and it shouldn't have to.

PS. Women have the right to reproductive healthcare on demand, despite what the bullshit Supreme Court says and I'm not debating with anyone about it. Fuck off. I'll block you and move on and not give a single thought about it.

[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Texas is a particularly bad state for the "go elsewhere" argument. It's a 13-hr road trip to pick up my kids from A to B. A to B in Texas can be far longer than that. And it's fairly costly. Easy $150-$200 for my trip. That's crushing to some people.

And where are they to go? Texas is surround by other red states, whose laws are likely the same, or even less friendly.

I dearly want the travel issue to have its day in court. Cannot imagine that passes Constitutional muster.

[–] buddhabound@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

And where are they to go?

New Mexico (which the local jurisdictions are doing their best to criminalize interstate travel, despite the Constitution and Court)

Kansas, which voted to protect women's right to reproductive healthcare.

Colorado. And then it gets further and further away after that. If someone is on the east side of Texas, Kansas and then Illinois are probably the closest safe & legal options.

[–] Chetzemoka@startrek.website 16 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Roe happened because Norma McCorvey chose to go to court instead of simply traveling out of state to obtain an abortion.

Most courts in the US require that a plaintiff in a lawsuit be at risk of significant actual harm due to the law or precedent they're suing to overturn. In the case of abortion rights lawsuits, this requires an actual pregnant woman to stand up in court in hopes of getting the law changed for herself and all women like her.

This is called "legal standing" and applies pretty much everywhere except the Supreme Court, which has suddenly and ahistorically decided that proper legal standing isn't necessary, and anyone can be a plaintiff on a lawsuit that presents only hypothetical harms.

I wish that last paragraph was even remotely sarcastic.

[–] qooqie@lemmy.world 8 points 9 months ago

Interesting and ultimately unfortunate that women need to be martyred so other women can have basic human rights because we can’t pass any law at a federal level protecting this

[–] GlitterInfection@lemmy.world 15 points 9 months ago

They've been making that illegal in these godawful states.

[–] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Maybe but if we have enough dying and suffering people making lawsuits, the US Supreme Court might, just maybe, consider overturning this ban? Isn't that how justice is supposed to work?

[–] Aussiemandeus@aussie.zone 3 points 9 months ago

You shouldnt have to die for justice