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Tuesday, September 21, 2021

Texas doctor performs an abortion. He gets sued, twice, by out of state individuals. A Texas abortion-hating group whines. A professor says "standing, standing, standing."

As it should be, given that brutally awful law, giving someone, anyone, standing to sue and a shot at a floor of ten grand statutory damages minimum, if winning. The doctor admits he performed the abortion. The plaintiffs seem set to prevail, unless the law fails to stand up to constitutional scrutiny (something our glorious federal supreme court took a hike on when presented with the opportunity to short circuit the circus - if only they were willing to behave as reasonably conscientious jurists concerned with judicial economy). Let the fun for all begin.

Strib carries the Sept. 20, 2021, AP report:

Former attorneys in Arkansas and Illinois filed separate state lawsuits Monday against Dr. Alan Braid, who in a weekend Washington Post opinion column became the first Texas abortion provider to publicly reveal he violated the law that took effect on Sept. 1.

They both came in ahead of the state's largest anti-abortion group, which had said it had attorneys ready to bring lawsuits. Neither ex-lawyer who filed suit said they were anti-abortion. But both said courts should weigh in.

The Texas law prohibits abortions once medical professionals can detect cardiac activity, which is usually around six weeks and before some women even know they are pregnant. Prosecutors cannot take criminal action against Braid, because the law explicitly forbids that. The only way the ban can be enforced is through lawsuits brought by private citizens, who don't have to be from Texas and who are entitled to claim at least $10,000 in damages if successful.

Oscar Stilley, who described himself in court paperwork as a disgraced former lawyer who lost his law license after being convicted of tax fraud in 2010, said he is not opposed to abortion but sued to force a court review of Texas' anti-abortion law, which he called an "end-run."

"I don't want doctors out there nervous and sitting there and quaking in their boots and saying, 'I can't do this because if this thing works out, then I'm going to be bankrupt,'" Stilley, of Cedarville, Arkansas, near the Oklahoma border, told The Associated Press.

Felipe N. Gomez, of Chicago, asked a court in San Antonio in his lawsuit to declare the new law unconstitutional. In his view, the law is a form of government overreach. He said his lawsuit is a way to hold the Republicans who run Texas accountable, adding that their lax response to public health during the COVID-19 pandemic conflicts with their crack down on abortion rights.

[...]  Braid wrote that on Sept. 6, he provided an abortion to a woman who was still in her first trimester but beyond the state's new limit.

"I fully understood that there could be legal consequences — but I wanted to make sure that Texas didn't get away with its bid to prevent this blatantly unconstitutional law from being tested," Braid wrote.

[...]  The Center for Reproductive Rights, one of the plaintiffs in the first federal lawsuit, is representing Braid.

The center's senior counsel, Marc Hearron, noted in a statement that the Texas law "says that 'any person' can sue over a violation, and we are starting to see that happen, including by out-of-state claimants."

Braid could not immediately be reached for comment Monday. His clinic referred interview inquiries to the center.

Texas Right to Life, the state's largest anti-abortion group, criticized both lawsuits and Braid's opinion column.

"Neither of these lawsuits are valid attempts to save innocent human lives," the group said. "We believe Braid published his op-ed intending to attract imprudent lawsuits, but none came from the Pro-Life movement."

 [...] Seth Chandler, a law professor at the University of Houston, said anyone suing would "have to persuade a Texas court that they have standing" despite not having personally suffered monetary or property damages.

Those Texas Right to Life whiners should read the mess of a statute they and others pushed the feeble Texas legislature to pass in order to be a bunch of troglodytes. It does not say only true believers can sue. 

Let them stand on the sidelines and watch. They can file amicus briefs, about how they love the statute and how it gives them what is their god's will. Despite federal law, Roe v. Wade preempting their wanting things different. The big roadblock, of course, is the Trump court's bias, which could ultimately really screw decades of reliance on Roe and its sensible mandates surrounding out-of-womb viability as a turning point.

This Texas four to six week turning point is clearly contradictory of what Roe has established, with intervening time showing the wisdom of Roe in terms of women having the right to eliminate something from their bodies that is not wanted at the same time Texas allows vaccination haters to expose the rest of the world to ongoing pandemic woe which could be handled with the virus being eliminated via universal vaccination.

One is freedom to imperil the rest of US with a severe chance of death, while the other is a private decision where tongue-clucking busy-bodies should butt out. Why they won't is astounding to thinking people, but they are as they are, and it would be interesting to see what percentage of abortion haters are also vaccination haters. That vs the remainder of the nation's people, and how they behave.

The AP report by quoting an individual did note that the contradictory views of freedom persist, freedom to go unvaccinated against a deadly disease with risk added to others, and freedom to terminate an unwanted pregnancy with no risk to any other living, breathing person, as a logical conundrum. It was written that way without expanding on the thought since that would be editorializing in a news story. Crabgrass posting today is clearly quoting, then editorializing, like it or love it.

Last, standing is a judicial doctrine used to throw out cases when judges want to throw them out. It is an often abused doctrine. The statute does not mandate "standing." If a court were to read standing as a doctrine governing the ability to sue, then who would have standing? Not liking women to have freedom of choice is not a cause to grant standing, since freedom to practice a religion entails no right to interfere in anybody else's rights. Believe what you want, but keep your nose out of other peoples' business seems to be a cherished restraint, else what of one claiming the right to kill non-believers as part of a "religion?" What of a religion that allows individuals to rob, rape and pillage? Crusaders thought that a cool idea, but got beaten back by Islam to where crusades fell out of favor. Moreover, the Catholic-Protestant history of European carnage is the background from which those writing the federal constitution made the choice to not have national religious mandates. 

The beat goes on.

_________UPDATE__________

For the hell of it a Google Scholar search of Texas court cases was done, search = "case and controversy" collusive litigation

One case was returned:

Blair v. Razis

926 SW 2d 784 - Tex: Court of Appeals, 12th Dist., 1996 - Google Scholar
… remedy for the employee as well as the municipality to resolve an employment dispute … &
REM.CODE, Uniform Declaratory Judgments Act, in that a real case and controversy exists
regarding the … exceeded its jurisdiction or that the order was procured by fraud, collusion or other …

 Cited by 15 How cited Related articles

FURTHER: another Texas judicial opinion search = "standing analysis"

Follow up on that one if you care dare. It might be a thicket. If you've time, you can do more Texas case law search, choosing how you word things in the search box, and Google Scholar will return what it does. A day or two could be wasted that way. Time is what you make it.