Texas Anti-Abortion Law Authorizes Vigilantes
Dianne Feeley
September 5, 2021
Bounty hunters are back, deputized by the majority of the U.S. Supreme Court. In a 5-4 vote that dissenting Justice Sonia Sotomayor calls “stunning,” the Court majority declared that they had no choice but to allow an unconstitutional Texas law to go into effect so that a “complex and novel antecedent procedural question” could play out. What’s the innovation? Simply that the law empowers any private individual to bring lawsuits against all who might aid a woman seeking an abortion beyond her sixth week of pregnancy. Texas Right to Life has already set up tip lines to activate those interested in pursuing such abettors, be they the woman’s family, staff at an abortion clinic or the taxi driver who took her to a clinic.
Since the Texas law, SB8, also provides any vigilante who proves the charge in court with a $10,000 reward plus legal fees, the law intimidates those who might help a woman who does not want to continue her pregnancy. Texas clinics have already announced that they have no choice but to comply with this deliberately unconstitutional law by ending their abortion practices.
The anti-choice justices on the Court used the excuse that because SB8 empowers vigilantes rather than public officials, it is an “unprecedented” approach that should be tested in decisions by the lower courts. While the law winds its way through the system, Texas clinics will be forced to close. Even if the Supreme Court eventually overturns it, much damage will have been done.
For almost fifty years the right wing has attempted to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision. They have won partial victories through allowing laws that imposed demeaning rules on abortion procedures and demonized women, particularly those who needed late-term abortions. Over the years anti-abortion fanatics have picketed clinics, set up phony clinics to attract and then intimidate women seeking abortion, lied about the safety of abortion, and written those untruths into propaganda providers must distribute before the medical procedure is performed…
The Power of Adrienne Rich: A Biography
By Hilary Holladay
Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 2020, 480 pages, $32.50 hardback.
ADRIENNE RICH WAS many things to many people. She was one of the United States’ leading poets, the recipient of countless honors, beginning while she was still in college and continuing until her death in 2012. In her forties, Rich became a lesbian feminist icon, idolized by crowds who flocked to her readings and talks, renowned for her book on motherhood Of Woman Born...
The national convention of Solidarity was held August 20-22, 2021 convened online due to the continuing and resurgent coronavirus pandemic. Discussions included the intersection of deepening crises: the pandemic in the USA and internationally, the intensifying rightwing voter-suppression drive and assault on basic rights, and the climate catastrophe.
The convention was preceded by a series of pre-convention sessions conducted over Zoom. In view of this successful experience, the incoming National...
We Demand the federal authorities take responsibility for the search for and liberation of Vicente Iván Suástegui Muñoz
On August 5 of this year, Vicente Iván Suástegui Muñoz was forcefully disappeared at the hands of an armed group of commandos that kidnapped him in the Renacimiento Neighborhood of the municipality of Acapulco, Guerrero, Mexico.
Vicente Suástegui is a member of the Council of Ejido Collective Farms and Communities Against the La Parota Dam (CECOP). Since 2003, the CECOP has...
The situation created in Cuba following the events of July 11th raises questions on a number of levels for those of us fighting for a society free from class exploitation and all forms of oppression — for those who aspire to build what Marx called the “true realm of freedom” with free and equal people living in harmony with nature. That is to say, communism — the emancipatory horizon that gives shape to the hopes of peoples and communities.
There is an urgent need to debate the best...
This week we are joined by Luis of the Mexican socialist party the Partido Revolucionario de las y los Trabajadores. We talk about what the PRT is, the current political situation in Mexico, the Fourth International, and the meaning of "Trotskyism" in the 21st century.
Unlike many radicals who trace their thinking back from traditional left organizations, Stanley was a bit of an outlier, identifying most closely with the Council Communist tradition, a variant blend of syndicalism and political organization that put its emphasis on socialism from below and the capacity of working people to emancipate themselves and make their own history.
A founding editor of the 1960s decade’s seminal journal Studies on the Left, a key organizer of union...
First, the Taliban have defeated the United States.
Second, the Taliban have won because they have more popular support.
Third, this is not because most Afghans love the Taliban. It is because the American occupation has been unbearably cruel and corrupt.
Fourth, the War on Terror has also been politically defeated in the United States. The majority of Americans are now in favor of withdrawal from Afghanistan and against any more foreign wars.
Fifth, this is a turning point in world history. The greatest...
The lightning conquest of Afghanistan by the Taliban offensive culminates a truly bipartisan U.S. imperial debacle more than 40 (not just 20) years in the making.
The U.S. military withdrawal is one issue where Trump and Biden were on the same track. Naturally, that doesn’t prevent Republicans (and some Democrats) from condemning Biden for the shambolic state of the exit. Like the endless empty noise over “Benghazi” (remember?), the backbiting will continue for quite some time, but isn’t terribly...
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group 1 has presented its Physical Basis Report as a contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report on climate change, due in early 2022. The report and its summary are written in the precise style and vocabulary of scientific publications that make ’objective’ statements. However, never before has a report by global warming experts given such an impression of the anguish caused by the analysis of the facts in the light of the...
This week we are joined by Jetzel, Magda, and Mak who are all leaders in KC Tenants. We talk about how they use a diversity of tactics, the importance of organizing at the speed of trust, why socialists should organize tenants, and some pro tips for those of us who are new to tenant organizing.
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