Nice Constitutional Right You Got There. Be A Shame If Anything…

Does everyone understand that “6 weeks pregnant” is really only 4 weeks pregnant and only about 2 weeks after a pregnancy even becomes detectible on a home test? So no the Texas law does not provide “6 weeks” for a woman to terminate a pregnancy, it provides 2 weeks at best… https://t.co/dYbBOJFL1u

— Anne Champion (@AnneChampion1) September 7, 2021

This is why abortions in Texas are shut down. Not just because a woman can’t tell she is pregnant within that time, but what does the time period mean? When does it start, and stop?

Someone please educate about pregnancy...🤦‍♀️
Dear men... A woman can be physically pregnant for two weeks or less... And still have the foetus classed as '6 weeks'. The term goes from the date of the woman's last period... Not conception date.

— KateyMcCourt87 (@kateymccoo) September 7, 2021

How do we determine the “conception date” under this statute? That’s the $10,000 question. Nobody wants to gamble on what the court will decide.*

What other constitutional act can we restrict without making it a criminal act?

Voting. The 15th amendment is more honored in the breach than In the keeping.

Section 1.

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Section 2.

The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Well, unless the Supremes declare the year of Jubilee, and don’t see any denial or abridgement based on race or color, like Stephen Colbert's character on "The Colbert Report."

 Actually, it’s more ignored than anything else. Of course we still criminalize voting. We just label it “voter fraud” and anything goes. And what isn’t labeled “criminal fraud” is just not allowed, like more convenient voting.  But then, you only have a right to vote. A right to convenient access is another matter. If it happens to abridge your right to vote based on color (which by and large affects your economic status and ability to get to the polls), well, that's your problem, isn't it?

*Lyft, by the way, is getting some nice publicity out of this. There's pretty much zero chance they'll have to pay the legal fees of any Lyft driver who takes a passenger to an abortion clinic or Planned Parenthood facility.  Abortions are at a dead halt in Texas right now.  It's more likely a Lyft driver is going to doxx a passenger who gets out at a PP facility, even though Lyft officially says they've told drivers not to do that.  Their driver's are independent contractors, right?  Anyway, I'm sure the thought of collecting $10,000 sounds better than what Lyft pays.

Same energy here:

In the letter signed by all Democratic members of the committee, including Texas Reps. Sylvia Garcia, Sheila Jackson Lee and Veronica Escobar, Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler of New York urged the department to take legal action against “would-be vigilantes” and reiterated Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent in the ruling.

“The Department of Justice cannot permit private individuals seeking to deprive women of the constitutional right to choose an abortion to escape scrutiny under existing federal law simply because they attempt to do so under the color of state law,” the Democrat’s letter said. “Indeed, the Department is fully empowered to prosecute any individual who attempts, ‘under color of any law,’ to deprive a United States citizen of ‘any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution.’”

In that letter they are fighting the wrong battle.  No abortion clinic is operating in Texas, because they can't afford the lawsuits (forget the possible judgement, just the attorneys fees), and don't want to pay for the appellate process.  If I were the lawyer for a clinic, I'd advise them to just stop abortions.  I wouldn’t advise them to spend money in court for years and years.  The problem of the private individuals bringing suit is a legal problem, but you don't solve it by going after individual actors who don't exist because the clinics won't open to provide abortions.  I mean, it looks good in headlines, but it's completely meaningless. 

This is much more useful:

“I am directing that Council and the Office of the White House Counsel to launch a whole-of-government effort to respond to this decision, looking specifically to the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Justice to see what steps the Federal Government can take to ensure that women in Texas have access to safe and legal abortions,” Biden said in a statement.