Yesterday, we looked at how South Carolina Republican Congressman William Timmons took a page directly out of the Democrats’ campaign book to attack a far right primary opponent for voting for legislation advocating locking up women who get an abortion, including women who are the victims of rape and/or incest. It’s worth watching the ad Timmons is running, especially since it’s in the most wackadoodle religionist part of the state.
Obviously, South Carolina isn’t the only backward, patriarchal stateful of hypocrites trying to control women. Texas is another one. Early yesterday, Carolina Kitchener reported that Texas’ vigilante law has given us a look at a crackpot Trump lawyer, Jonathan Mitchell, is trying to ruin the life of a woman for having traveled to Colorado for an abortion. The woman’s boyfriend, Collin Davis, hired Mitchell to stop her from leaving the state in late February, threatening to “pursue wrongful-death claims against anyone involved in the killing of his unborn child.”
She had the abortion and Davis and Mitchell are out for blood. “The decision to target an abortion that occurred outside of Texas,” wrote Kitchener, “represents a potential new strategy by anti-abortion activists to achieve a goal many in the movement have been working toward since Roe v. Wade was overturned: stopping women from traveling out of state to end their pregnancies. Crossing state lines for abortion care remains legal nationwide. The case also illustrates the role that men who disapprove of their partners’ decisions could play in surfacing future cases that may violate abortion bans— either by filing their own civil lawsuits or by reporting the abortions to law enforcement. Under Texas law, performing an abortion is a crime punishable by up to a lifetime in prison and up to $100,000 in civil penalties. Women seeking abortions cannot be charged under the state’s abortion restrictions, but the laws target anyone who performs or helps to facilitate an illegal abortion, including those who help distribute abortion pills.”
Davis’s petition— filed under Texas’s Rule 202 by Jonathan Mitchell, a prominent antiabortion attorney known for devising new and aggressive legal strategies to crack down on abortion— follows a lawsuit filed last spring by another Texas man, Marcus Silva, who is attempting to sue three women who allegedly helped his ex-wife obtain abortion pills.
“Davis is considering whether to sue individuals and organizations that participated in the murder of his unborn child,” Mitchell, widely known as the architect of Senate Bill 8, wrote in Davis’s complaint in March.
…Anti-abortion advocates have tried various tactics to dissuade women from traveling out of state for abortions. Idaho has passed a law making it illegal for someone to help a minor leave the state for an abortion without parental consent— which is currently blocked by the courts— and Tennessee is pursuing similar restrictions. Several Texas cities and counties have passed local ordinances attempting to stop women seeking abortions from using key portions of high-traffic highways.
Mitchell said in a statement that abortions that occur outside Texas can be targets for civil litigation.
“Fathers of aborted fetuses can sue for wrongful death in states with abortion bans, even if the abortion occurs out-of-state,” he wrote. “They can sue anyone who paid for the abortion, anyone who aided or abetted the travel, and anyone involved in the manufacture or distribution of abortion drugs.”
Molly Duane, a senior staff attorney with the Center for Reproductive Rights, described Mitchell’s statement and general approach as misleading “fearmongering.”
“People need to understand that it is not a crime to leave Texas or any other state in the country for an abortion,” said Duane, who is working with lawyers from the firm Arnold & Porter to represent the woman and others targeted in the Davis case. “I don’t want people to be intimidated, but they should be outraged and alarmed.”
Duane described the woman’s relationship with Davis as “toxic and harmful.”
Davis— who claims in the petition to have helped conceive what he calls his “unborn child”— did not respond to requests for comment. Mitchell declined to comment on Duane’s description of the relationship.
Abortion rights advocates say these types of legal actions amount to “vigilante justice” designed to intimidate people who have done nothing wrong. Duane and other lawyers representing the woman asked the court to redact the names of those involved from the public court filings, out of a concern for their privacy and safety.
…Over the past two years, many antiabortion activists have grown frustrated by what they see as a lack of enforcement of abortion bans— particularly as abortion pills become more widely available in antiabortion states because of growing online and community-based pill networks.
Some antiabortion advocates are searching for a way to crack down.
“You have laws being ignored systematically— so what are we going to do about it?” said John Seago, president of Texas Right to Life, the state’s largest antiabortion group. The pill networks, he added, “can and should be prosecuted.”
Diane Young is the progressive taking on Michigan anti-Choice MAGA John James in a suburban swing district north of Detroit in a state where Choice is protected. But she warned, that “this is the future John James' wants for Michigan. He previously called aborition ‘genocide,’ and if we reelect him to Congress, he will vote for a national abortion ban. We are living in a terrifying time when stories like these, which were once unthinkable, are starting to become commonplace. Unlike James, I believe women should have complete control of their bodies and should have access to safe and legal abortions, as well as life saving medication. Women should not have to live under the fear of ex-partners in any capacity. John James and his cohort of MAGA Republicans need to be stopped.”
Conor O’Callaghan is the progressive running for the Maricopa County swing district anti-Choice extremist David Schweikert is occupying. O’Callaghan is a staunch defender of women’s Choice. “This is disgusting,” he told us, “and goes to show how extreme the far right has become. MAGA fanatics like David Schweikert want to ban abortion nationwide. I’m running to get Schweikert out of Congress and Republicans out of women’s healthcare decisions.”
Eric Wilson is running against the same kind of character, Derrick Van Orden in a western Wisconsin swing district. And, like Diane’s nd Conor's, you can contribute to his campaign here. “Van Orden,” he told us, “is already pushing an extreme anti-abortion agenda, saying he’s ‘100% pro-life’ and even comparing abortion to ‘genocide.’ I unequivocally support a woman’s right to an abortion and bodily autonomy. Men should not be making decisions for women about their bodies. I will fight to make sure this is codified into law and make sure women have access to the care they need, inclusive of birth control and IVF.”