The law directly violates the landmark 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade Supreme Court, in which a 7-2 majority found that the right to privacy, while not specifically mentioned, is implicitly contained in the 14th Amendment`s due process clause, which is broad enough to encompass a woman`s decision. Whether she wants to have an abortion or not. Although the State has certain legitimate interests in protecting women from unsafe medical procedures and preserving prenatal life, the right of a pregnant woman to terminate her pregnancy is fundamental. Furthermore, in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, the court ruled strictly that the state cannot impose an undue burden on the pregnant woman`s decision to have an abortion to the point of “viability,” which is about 24 weeks` gestation. The standard of “fetal viability” is constitutional, and the law in question directly violates that standard. In addition, the legislation also violates Section 1 of the 14th Amendment, which guarantees the right to personal liberty unless limited by due process. The violation of a federal provision by state law also violates the primacy clause of the United States Constitution. Texas law is not enforced by state or local authorities. Instead, it allows individuals to sue anyone they believe helped someone get an abortion. The idea is to protect the government itself from legal challenges. The law also states that these citizens can raise $10,000 or more if their lawsuits are successful, a feature that led U.S.
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor to call them “bounty hunters.” In this article, the authors attempt to assess the legal validity of the law and its private enforcement provisions in relation to established precedents. In addition, they underscore the law`s failure to comply with the United States` international obligations. James White, a Republican member of the Texas House of Representatives who supports the state`s abortion law, asked in a letter to the state`s attorney general whether individuals were bound by the 2015 Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide. But White said in an interview that he did not expect a state law similar to the abortion law, which targets the rights of same-sex couples. Several other states monitor abortion restrictions. The Texas law and the Mississippi law are being tested by the highest courts and pose a serious challenge to Roe v. Wade, who made abortion a constitutionally protected right. It`s a victory for the lawyers who proposed it, and a signal to other states that want to restrict access to abortion — or anything constitutionally protected, either explicitly or by previous court rulings. On Tuesday, two people, one from Arkansas and the other from Illinois, filed a lawsuit in a San Antonio court against a Texas doctor who admitted in an op-ed for the Washington Post that he had performed an abortion on a woman beyond the six-week threshold. Texas hasn`t banned abortion for everyone — only for those who can`t afford to travel to other states and countries where the decision on whether or not to have a child is left to the pregnant person. However, Justice Breyer noted in his dissenting judgment that since the state cannot regulate abortion for the first 24 weeks, the state cannot delegate this regulatory power to an individual during that period. Delegating enforcement powers to an individual opens the door to an unlimited number of prosecutions that “pose a clear threat of imminent legal harm.” The principle of “private non-delegation” was introduced in Cartel v.
Cartel, in which delegating a crucial governmental function to a private entity with insufficient safeguards was found to be a violation of the procedural clauses of the Fifth and 14th Amendments. In addition, a private entity is prohibited from exercising any legislative or executive function of the federal government as interpreted by the acquisition clauses of the United States Constitution in The Department of Transportation v. Association of American Railroads. The private prosecution of public law in all discretion calls into question the legitimacy and responsibility of the state and law enforcement. If someone had helped her, she could have been prosecuted. This makes traveling to other locations for abortions riskier for helpers, but not for pregnant women. And there is evidence that Texans seeking abortions have traveled to other states. For four decades, when an abortion ban went into effect but has not yet gone into effect, abortion rights advocates have successfully sued in federal courts to prevent state officials from enforcing the laws, even if the laws remain in effect. Two states have previously used similar legal tactics in laws aimed at preventing transgender youth from using facilities or playing on sports teams that match their gender identity. Lawmakers in five other Republican-led states have introduced abortion laws modeled on the Texas law, similarly structured to avoid judicial review, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights, a legal advocacy group that advocates for abortion rights.
So far, none have been adopted. The Republican-backed Texas law takes the law away from state officials and instead allows individuals to sue anyone who performs or assists a woman in obtaining an abortion after embryonic heart activity is detected — within the sixth week of pregnancy — with rewards of at least $10,000 for successful lawsuits. The Supreme Court issued its verdict on Friday. Just as many legal experts have predicted, the Texas enforcement provision has become a magnet for other states seeking to curtail constitutionally protected rights. Texas` anti-abortion law, which encourages ordinary people to sue health care providers, has worried human rights advocates and legal experts that the legal maneuver is spreading to other states — and other social issues. In the meantime, this provision has proven effective in protecting the new strict limits on abortion from judicial review. The challenges are still before the courts, but the abortion law remains in place while the lawsuits simmer. The state`s new law includes a new civil enforcement mechanism “so new it`s even confusing for some prosecutors” that requires citizens to report anyone who helps a pregnant Texan get an abortion. It prevents the state from being sued because it does not enforce anything, and it pays a $10,000 bounty to people who beat their fellow Texas nationals. This is a sneaky way of punishing anyone who assists in an abortion in any way – except the pregnant person.