The Confederate Taliban

 The state of Texas (or, the Confederate Taliban) has passed a law making abortion after 6 weeks illegal. The provisions of the law are unique. The state will not enforce this law; rather, they have farmed out enforcement to anonymous tipsters who would be rewarded $10,000 or more for a tip leading to a woman who seeks or any entity that provides or abets a legal abortion. The law is a shadow law, not intended to overturn Roe v Wade but rather as a step to make it impossible by other means for a woman to make a choice about an unplanned pregnancy. There is no exemption for pregnancies due to rape and incest. There is no exemption for a woman with a fatally deformed fetus, such as a trisomy.

This is the same Texas legislature that just decided that democracy is not for their citizens by passing a voter suppression act. This is the same Texas that just passed a law allowing almost anyone to carry a handgun without training or license. This is the same Texas whose governor flouts public health by making the wearing of masks during a pandemic or receiving a Covid vaccine odious. Yes, this is the Confederate Taliban in action.

As a physician, I agree with the American Medical Association and the Texas Medical Association that SB8 removes physicians from an important part of women’s health care and criminalizes them if they attempt to provide it. As a citizen, I agree with President Biden and Vice President Harris that this law will especially impact minority and poor women. We have here a state trying to subvert the United States Constitution and an established precedent that abortion is a choice that women make between themselves and their physician, not influenced by a vigilante mob.

As David Von Drehle writes, SB8 is a classic example of might-makes-right. Legal scholars and pundits have pointed out that the federal government does have pathways to protect women in Texas from this abomination of a law. Today Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that the Department of Justice is planning to protect these women under the FACE Act (Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act of 1994). There is a certain delicious irony in the possibility that the law could be opposed using the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871. The former Grand Old Party is no longer a political party but a Krazy Kult. I am finding it hard to suffer their authoritarian approach any longer. 

Abortion has been one of many points in the cultural wars that consume us. It has reliably gotten R’s out to vote. It was always the car the dog was chasing while loudly yapping. Now the dog has caught the car. With most Americans feeling access to legal and safe abortion is necessary, and with increasing numbers of women voters, this may be a problem for Republicans across the country. Added to the other Krazy Kult cultural war tropes (more guns, end voting rights, no masks, anti-vaccination, etc.), this may be the one that bites them in the leg. Supporting trumpism is dangerous. I will work as hard as I can to see that Republicans at every level are out of office in coming elections. To do less than that would be unAmerican.