The state of Texas has figured out, at least for now, how to do unconstitutional things in a way that doesn’t raise a majority of the eyebrows in the U.S. Supreme Court.
The court turned back a legal effort by abortion providers to stop the state’s new ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy while that new law is being litigated. It means most abortions are illegal in Texas and will remain so unless the courts eventually find the new law unconstitutional. Some justices already have said as much.
The peculiar enforcement built into the law seemed to baffle the judges, as it was intended to do. Instead of the state enforcing the law — the normal way these things work — the state’s anti-abortion measure leaves that to private citizens, who are empowered to sue anyone who “aids or abets” someone seeking an abortion — from the doctors who perform abortions to someone who drives a woman to a clinic. It includes a “bounty hunter” provision that allows someone who successfully files a suit to collect $10,000 on top of legal fees.
