The Texas Bounty Hunter Bill (w/ 5-4's Rhiannon)
Added 2021-09-30 15:01:08 +0000 UTCMatt and Sam are joined by a very special guest—the 5-4 podcast's Rhiannon—to discuss the ghastly anti-abortion bill that recently went into affect in Texas after the Supreme Court failed to provide an injunction against it. They discuss the Supreme Court's "shadow docket" (on which Whole Woman's Health v. Jackson was decided), break down what exactly the Texas legislation does and why it is so appalling, and zoom out to put it all in the context of the Right's continued assault on decency and justice.
Sources:
SCOTUS, Whole Woman's Health v. Jackson, September 1, 2021
5-4's emergency episode on Whole Woman's Health v. Jackson, September 3, 2021
Matthew Sitman, "The Travesty in Texas," Commonweal, September 26, 2021
Mark Joseph Stern, "Republicans Don't Actually Want Roe v. Wade to End This Way," Slate, September 8, 2021
Alan Feuer, "The Texas Abortion Law Creates a Kind of Bounty Hunter. Here’s How It Works," New York Times, September 10, 2021
Erin Douglas and Carla Astudillo, "We Annotated Texas’ Near-Total Abortion Ban. Here’s What the Law Says about Enforcement," Texas Tribune, September 10, 2021
Comments
I think, at least in some ways, conservative ideology only really leaves room for compassion for helpless, unseen victims. Once they see a victim as having agency, or seeing an actual person, the atomization of individual responsibility is applied. Some reason is invented for why their victimhood is their fault, or is even deserved. An element of believing in existing hierarchies is believing that they are just, or even righteous, and thus anyone being harmed by those hierarchies is the just outcome. So, they can have compassion for an unborn fetus, but less compassion for the child once born, and little to none for the person bearing the fetus. It seems to me like the general idea is that life begins at conception, but stops mattering once they can say your problems are your fault.
Stephen Lewis
2021-10-21 12:40:12 +0000 UTCEmily, thanks for your comment. To further my line of questioning though, I ask you to put aside any discussion of viability or and at what stage the single cell becomes a life for now. The comparison to q followers and many conservative right to lifers is made because the “unborn fetus” stage is not a visible, accessible victim. The victim is not being cared for in any way other than to be “fought for,” to be “saved” to be brought into existence. There is no welfare to be looked after or responsibility being accepted by society in either movement past “rescue.” It’s like the philosophy and beliefs of many conservatives has no place for people to discover or express innate compassion or act fulfill the desire that many have to view ourselves as heroic. And the this issue lends an easy out. All you have to do is prevent someone from having an abortion and their job is done. They feel compassionate, heroic and selfless. And no further consideration of what happen to a child once born is needed. In fact that’s all put back on the mother (parents) forced to give birth. And there is no cost born by the “saviors” or society. I wonder, if there was a built in social safety net from cradle to grave guaranteed to any child born “by force” (i.e. by not allowing the mother to have aborted, as she wanted) how support on the right might wane. I know this is a generalization. But I feel it applies to many.
Robin Lindheimer
2021-10-10 17:54:24 +0000 UTCIt's true that fetuses are made of flesh and blood, and some percentage of them have the potential to develop into babies. But natural embryo mortality is high; that is, the foetus is often expelled or discarded through natural processes. This somehow influences my expectations and impulses. When I then ask, as you put it, what is the "something real at stake in an abortion?" I want to answer, the potential for a child to be imagined
Carolyn Prescott
2021-10-10 12:11:13 +0000 UTCAborted fetuses aren’t imagined victims. They are made of flesh and blood. I know what you’re gesturing at here, but the whole discourse would feel a lot more genuine to me if we could acknowledge there is something real at stake in an abortion, whether the right’s imagining of that thing is accurate or not.
Emily
2021-10-09 06:42:31 +0000 UTCThe comparison that came to mind during this discussion was that between conservative pro lifers and Q Anon followers. Both have members with various beliefs and ideologies that have very little to do with compassion of any kind. In both cases they can be quite hateful, in fact. But both have one exception to that rule. An exception that is central and that drives each that uncharacteristically, does involve compassion. But in both cases,the unborn in former and the invisible “exploited children” in the the case of the latter. And, in both, it is imagined helpless victims. It’s as if they can only have compassion for the concept of innocent victims but are not able to apply it to actually flesh and blood children who need help. If we can understand that it might be a be a step closer to “knowing our enemy.”
Robin Lindheimer
2021-10-08 05:22:16 +0000 UTCThe comparison I kept w
Robin Lindheimer
2021-10-08 05:04:37 +0000 UTCStudies like this one are important in examining the class distinctions that underly a lot of decisions when a problematic pregnancy occurs. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0886109917713976
Chad Bailey
2021-10-05 15:20:35 +0000 UTCI do have to humbly critique part of the discussion. While lefties acknowledge ideology as a fundamental issue, the discussion in this episode overlooked the ideological differences in those seeking to ban abortion. This issue is explicitly raised in chapter 2 of MacIntyre’s “After Virtue.” Pro-lifers aren’t inherently seeking to reconstitute the patriarchy, but to protect the life of what they consider innocent unborn babies. The consequences of that may involve and invoke some patriarchal replies, but that is inherently not their goal. MacIntyre does a good job of pointing out how, within liberalism, political debates talk past one another with very little actual dialogue. “Women’s autonomy” vs “right to life,” for example, without ever addressing the other side’s assumptions and assertions.
Chad Bailey
2021-10-05 15:16:58 +0000 UTCGee wonder if Amy C ever heard of a SLAPP suit?
Paula Craigo
2021-10-05 14:49:27 +0000 UTCSeems worse than a SLAPP suit. No risk from losing the case, in fact there’s a dang bounty and all your (plaintiff) costs are covered.
Paula Craigo
2021-10-05 14:48:42 +0000 UTCAnswered at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_public_participation
Paula Craigo
2021-10-05 14:43:35 +0000 UTCWhats a SLAPP suit?
Paula Craigo
2021-10-05 14:42:10 +0000 UTCAt six weeks gestational age, there is no heart, just a little strip of primordial tissue with some electrical activity. Why does that fact not render the so-called heartbeat Bill null and void?
Paula Craigo
2021-10-04 19:28:01 +0000 UTCOnce again I am reminded of the summary of the Reagan era policies in this area: life begins at conception and ends at birth. Excellent discussion.
Paula Craigo
2021-10-04 19:24:57 +0000 UTCAs a child of evangelical Jesus freaks I can certainly affirm that roe v Wade turned them and many people at their church into single-issue voters. Even though we were of the laboring class they consistently voted against their own interests selecting candidates merely upon the recommendation of Operation Rescue.
Jonathan McClintock
2021-10-03 19:59:17 +0000 UTCLove both podcasts! Good crossover.
supremewarpig
2021-10-01 21:25:48 +0000 UTCThe political economy of abortion is really not part of the public discourse. A study of the National Family Growth Survey found that a pregnant woman in the highest family income quartile was the most likely to get an abortion, with the likelihood of abortion declining monotonously with lower income. That points to the low WTP of poorer women, as market signals provide little indication of their worth. College and grad school women have much more to lose, which provides economic incentive not to be pregnant.
Chad Bailey
2021-09-30 21:15:11 +0000 UTCIt feels like Texas is legalizing another form of vigilanty terror.
Greg T. Miraglia
2021-09-30 20:43:39 +0000 UTCThese videos address the problems in the pro-life movement statistically. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvBrTO18J974XEDWZfI70M7Eq69KIPiCs
Chad Bailey
2021-09-30 20:28:21 +0000 UTCAlso, the lack of ability to conduct discover seems to make the suits similar to SLAPP suits.
Chad Bailey
2021-09-30 20:08:09 +0000 UTCSerious question for the lawyers. How would a citizen suit in the Texas abortion law get evidence that a particular abortion occurred at the hands of a particular provider? Discovery can’t get through doctor-patient confidentiality can it?
Chad Bailey
2021-09-30 20:02:18 +0000 UTC
