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Comment by trhway | Hacker News Reader

>The ban leaves enforcement up to individual citizens, enabling them to sue anyone who provides or "aids or abets" an abortion after six weeks.

i'm kind of puzzled by that extension of legal standing to everybody. I mean anybody who notices say a woman losing a bit of weight and that basically allows to file a suit, trigger discovery, and now the woman should prove that it was just a morning exercises?

It takes Neghbourhood Watch to new, medieval, heights so to speak.

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> i'm kind of puzzled by that extension of legal standing to everybody

It designed to maximize the legal threat surface for anyone connected to abortion while immunizing the law against the pre-enforcement review it would have been subject to had it been state-enforced.

It’s a study in how to design a law for maximum chilling effect when you know you have an ideologically supportive Supreme Court but one with enough respect for legal precedent that it is unlikely that they’d simply uphold a 6-week abortion ban.

(Viewed another way, its a study in how to conduct an overt, brazen conspiracy against rights and deprivation of rights under color of law and test whether the federal criminal laws against those mean anything.)

A non-profit sued it's way to SCOTUS a few years ago in defense of frogs.

Absurd arguments both for and against standing are hardly new, and most don't have statutory authority behind them.

> Absurd arguments both for and against standing are hardly new

Narrowly crafting laws to avoid pre-enforcement review specifically to maximize the impact knowing that they will almost certainly be struck down as unconstitutional is, on the other hand, unusual, if perhaps not completely new (something similar may have been done before, but I am not aware of any examples.)

There's a federal law giving people the right to sue fax spammers- statutory damages of ~$500 per fax, specifically to get around freedom of speech. I think it was in the 1996 telecom law.

Not sure if it's been litigated.

> A non-profit sued it's way to SCOTUS a few years ago in defense of frogs.

Is a non-profit defending frogs meant to be self-evidently absurd?

For standing to sue? Yes

Why would a special interest group be able to sue to protect frogs, but another wouldn't be able to sue to protect unborn babies?

They're going to have some issues bringing frogs in as a party to a lawsuit (those little green bastards can't even sign the appropriate paperwork... lack of opposable thumbs) but there's nothing legally noteworthy about a non-profit group obtaining standing to sue the government about an environmental or ecological issue that is covered under statute, or under the executive branch/EPA's enforcement jurisdiction.

>that is covered under statute,

And this Texas law gives statutory standing.

Don't live in Texas so not really paying attention to this, but normally a lawsuit is filed when one has suffered a loss or harm. How does a third party claim any loss or harm giving him standing to sue in this situation?

As far as I understand that's one of the more insane parts of this law. You don't need to show you suffered any harm or loss, absolutely anyone can sue under this law.

It's probably using some twisted justification like saying that abortions cause harm to society as a whole, and that gives any member of society standing.

More like "I'll be sent to hell if I don't save a soul". It's all selfishly motivated.

So raising a child in very suboptimal conditions is high chance of child turning criminal later on. Or parents dropping put of school to provide for the child. It can well be argued both ways.

AFAIK that is the definition of a crime, and is enforced by the state accordingly.

This seems ridiculous, to the point that I feel like I'm missing something.

Does that mean that multiple people can sue a single person?

If the person proves that there was no abortion, who covers the legal fees?

Would it be possible to bait people into suing, get expensive lawyers and then provide proof that there was no abortion?

Take this with a huge grain of salt as my information is mostly indirect and I'm certainly not a lawyer. But I've read that there is actually a provision in there that prevents the legal fees for the defendant to be covered even if they win.

I suspect this will crash and burn not because it is insane, but because it's also a mess legally. But that will take time.

> Does that mean that multiple people can sue a single person?

Yes, the bill enables thousands of suits to be filed, even if frivolous, against abortion providers.

> If the person proves that there was no abortion, who covers the legal fees?

The bill explicitly covers the fees of the person bringing the suit, but provides no means for the person being sued to recover legal costs.

The combination of these two facts means that operating a clinic that even is abortion adjacent will no longer be economically viable.

If I were living in Texas and looking for ways to combat this law, I'd look into launching some sort of DDOS on its proponents by suing as many of them as frequently as possible on frivolous grounds, like if they took a teenage child to school in a neighbourhood where there is also an abortion clinic within 2 hours of walking.

Fortunately, I don't live anywhere near Texas...

Technically, there are some ways to demonstrate loss of harm. For example, imagine the father of the potential kid, not agreeing with the abortion, can make a reasonable claim.

The abortion has this ugly side, the father has zero rights. This is why I cannot agree with any side, pro-abortionists are wrong in some points, pro-lifers are wrong in some points and there is no effort to make it right, from any side. Such laws are not making it right, they are just an abuse (or farce) of the judicial system.

Does that imply that the fathers should be always financially liable for paying for the ongoing pregnancy or are you just speaking your mind without thinking of how that can affect women?

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