The Texas Heartbeat Act (SB8) gets a hearing at the Supreme Court, but this new law, with no official enforcement mechanism, faces serious hurdles. Bill Whittle says its greatest failure is not legal or procedural, but moral — it doesn’t go far enough.
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Video below hosted at Rumble.
16 replies on “Why Texas Heartbeat Act (SB8) Doesn’t Go Far Enough and Won’t Pass Supreme Court Hurdles”
I think the lawmakers who framed the TX heartbeat law decided to use a useful lawfare trick they learned from the leftist environmental activists. Giving private citizens the right to sue the providers will either drown them in expensive lawsuits (costing them a fortune in legal fees even if they should prevail) or the potential for endless litigation will discourage them out of business. It’s a sneaky end-run that the Left has been using for decades.
And instead of trying to shut down the evil the other side decides to also turn into it. At the end of Animal Farm the animals looked through the window and discovered they can’t tell the pigs from the humans anymore…
When every official party is working on destroying the “rule of law” (or in more general, the ideas USA was founded on) and related framework, maybe its long overdue to create a new one that works on preserving it.
It went pretty far with people just resorting to picke the somewhat-lesser-evil so the concept of “good” got forgotten.
I think we first need to start with that the Constitution does not contain the word ‘abortion’ or any form of the term anywhere. They have loosely linked to the right to privacy to justify making abortions legal.
I say let it play out. The states are free to write whatever laws, taking whatever approach they choose. If it turns out to be too flawed, they can then go back and update it. Glass half full – it’s a start.
I was a little afraid on what the commentary will be. But everyone turned up with the same ideas I have.
This is an absurd “law” and if stays up will put a wedge in the whole legal system. That is already in shambles.
That is the rule of thumb of lawmaking that you lay out not wishes but what you are ready to enforce. Anything else shall not be included. If TX wants to ban abortion, it should do exactly that. And stand behind their idea as they are happy to specify. Or just stay out of it.
USA suffered enough from cancel culture, no need to encourage more of it. And people should be smart to stand up aganist legal shenanigans even if the side effect happens to go their way. As then they will lose ground from similar attempts of others. And there will be way more of those.
Just imagine the businesses YOU use everyday and enjoy shutting down one by one because facing made-up lawsuits from people who never used them, but claiming they are outraged. By whatever, like not employing enough transgender folks or islam jihadists or illegal aliens. Or not using enough distinct colors in the logo. Or refusing to denounce some false claim every half hour. We saw most of those elements in real life. All having real impact even without legal nudges. Imagine what the world will look like if “mind you own business” criteria is striked from lawsuits.
Financing those takes way less money than officials, so Soros and copany would immediately take advantage.
And in general, I expected TX to know better. And do better. And the push-back starting with Texans, to make their reps keep on the good path.
I can see one situation where this Texas law would be useful. If “standing” is a requirement that is.
If a woman has an abortion without the permission or knowledge of the baby’s father, that father would certainly have “standing”. The child being murdered is 50% his own genetic offspring.
If nothing else, it would put a serious crimp on that sort of thing. If the mother was required to prove that she had both the knowledge and consent of the father it might stop a few abortions from taking place. In most cases no doubt the male component would be more than happy to sign off on a legal murder that got him out of child support or an involuntary marriage.
But not in all cases. There may even be some men who would either be willing to deny permission on moral grounds opposing abortion and there are probably a few who would deny permission just to “get even” with a woman for various things that result in the termination of his relationship to her.
More importantly it brings in the father, who is another party to the decision process besides just a female and negates some of the “my body, my choice” arguments focusing all decision making on the female. It would no longer be the decision of just one person (the female) but of two, the two who it took both of to arrive at this situation in the first place.
I think this would open a serious chink in the pro-abortionists case. It’s a valid one too, if a woman kills her baby it’s not just her baby and that’s a good point to get out in the open and have addressed.
If it boils down to “standing” and only the father (or presumably a close relative to either the father or the mother) has that standing then that negates some of the legal unintended consequences of the law also.
I.E. if you have to prove standing in order to collect damages that the murdered abortion victim baby was a direct concern of you in your life and that you were left out of the decision process maliciously or negligently then something like suing ammo manufacturers has to meet that same bar.
It’s not that the loss of a loved one due to gunfire isn’t a direct impact on your life, it’s that there was no decision making process that you could have been involved in that would have made any difference to the outcome. Whereas with an abortion there is a long and easily demonstrated decision making process that at any point could have been interdicted to deny the abortion.
If you can come up with some sort of similar decision making process where if you had a say in the decisions leading to the event of a gunshot death then it would not have happened … Then you might be able to claim “standing”. Good luck with that.
Perhaps the Texas legal system is even craftier than they’re being given credit for as they already knew about this issue of “standing” in their own legal system.
I’ve always thought it was incredibly unfair that a child is carried to term only when the mother wants it to be. Pregnancy is a temporary state, death is permanent. Why is her say the only deciding factor?
I’ve also heard of devious women who have impregnated themselves after giving oral sex (sorry if this is too graphic). Again, the man has no say about whether he wanted to be a father, but he is on the hook for support.
If a man were to have some of his sperm frozen, then have a vasectomy, he would have more control over when and if he becomes a father. I realize there is still a very small possibility of pregnancy, but at least it could level the playing field. And the abortion clinics would have fewer and fewer clients. Just a thought.
I agree completely with your estimation regarding unfairness. From my viewpoint abortion is nothing more than murder for the sake of convenience.
This matter of “standing” in the public laws of the State of Texas might have some impact on that. If I were a political strategist in Texas I’d be examining that angle very closely.
I think that perhaps the best way to cut back on unwanted pregnancies and subsequent abortions would be the development of some sort of male birth control pill. Distributed for free to anyone who wants it, even by mail. I think that a lot of guys get caught up in the heat (pun intended) of the moment who would otherwise be more responsible, and more reluctant to end up raising/paying child support for a kid they did not feel ready to accept responsibility for.
It would also give men some defense against women looking to snag a spouse, or a child care check, through pregnancy.
I’m aware that a male birth control medication is a near impossibility, I’m just sayin’.
We were “sold” the idea of Roe v. Wade with the promise that abortion would be safe and rare. It’s neither and in fact is 100% unsafe for the child who is murdered in the process. Abortion has become a method of birth control, not a rare medical procedure only implemented when a pregnancy results despite due diligence and all possible precautions.
We still have the problem of unwanted children and unwanted children are a huge problem. Among other things they do not tend to be reared as responsible human beings and end up more of a human shaped animal than not.
Too, once someone has gone to the time and effort to carry a child to full term, they’re not usually real eager to give up that child no matter how wanted or not it started out the day of conception. Otherwise unwanted pregnancy wouldn’t really be a problem because there are something like 24 couples waiting to adopt for every available child.
If we could get the unwanted pregnancy problem solved at least to the point where it is both the male and female who have a veto over a pregnancy even occurring that would be a very good first step to solving a lot of other issues moral and social.
Of course, both male and female DO have a veto as it stands now. It’s just that abstinence doesn’t seem to be working as a strong option.
I don’t know about vasectomies as a solution though, I don’t think that would work any more than tubal ligations would appeal to females. Both involve a pretty serious commitment and surgery, that’s not going to have a broad appeal to most people.
I agree with you that this is a moral and legal issue, though we can only deal with the legal through the courts.
I am not sure how many abortions are a result of trickery on the part of the female and the male would rather have the child, but as you point out, there are conflicts of interest over paternity and a man trying to sue on behalf of his child could end up having to turn over whatever monetary benefits he receives to the female.
I could see how various grandparents-to-be could have standing but also adoption agencies should. They and their clients have to jump through so many hoops with overseas adoptions because of the unwillingness of mothers here to fully give up rights to their children (or so I hear) that children that are truly not wanted (and the pregnancy paid for by the adopting parents) should provide enough standing.
Good and valid points all.
What’s wrong with Steve’s audio? Broadcasting from inside a 55 gallon drum?
Had a tech issue right before showtime and had to switch to recording on an iPad — and due to the delay, not enough time to rig my good mic up to it
Glitch happens … 🙂
A little trick I learned from my sister, who uses her iPad a lot.
If you’re missing a better mic, find the mic hole on the iPad.
Take a styrofoam (or paper) cup. Cut a slit in the cup near the bottom, wide enough to slip the iPad into. Place cup over mic.
You’ve just created a make-shift directional microphone that will also cut the room echoes down.
I am now marketing this device, and will offer one to Steve for 3 easy payments of just $19.95. [spoiler title=”But wait…”] If Steve acts now, he gets the styrofoam cup, and the tin-can telephone as a bonus. Supplies are limited. If operators are busy, please keep trying. [/spoiler]
Don’t forget to charge for postage and handling! 🙂
Good Commentary. I didn’t think about a lot of the implications that Bill brought up in this video.