The great state of Texas—now completely under the control of the extreme right—decided to do away with abortion rights, while trying to immunize itself from a legal challenge, by putting enforcement of the new law purely in the hands of vigilantes. No state action, no remedy, is the clear plan. The Supreme Court, in its infinite wisdom, is playing along, at least for now.
My thoughts on this are as follows;
- If you really needed evidence that mask and vaccine-hating Reactionaries are faux libertarians, here it is.
- There will be copycat legislation approved by numerous other red states within months, or even weeks.
- Blue state residents are going to use the internet to offer assistance to Texas women who want abortions. Texas will try to use its regulations to permit civil actions against these non-residents. All legal hell will break loose at that point.
- Blue states will retaliate by adopting extraterritorial legislation protecting abortion.
- The right will regret the vigilante approach, because it can be used just as easily by the left against them on issues, for example, involving free speech.
- The Supreme Court has just made a terrible, shortsighted decision that will tear the country apart. It would be better just to overturn Roe in the ordinary course of business and be done with it. Ratifying the vigilante concept, which relies on the state judiciary, as somehow being outside of the state action requirement, will lead to truly awful consequences.