October 1, 2023

When the U.S. Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade, the conservative majority claimed the decision merely returned the issue for states to decide. But county commissioners in Texas’ Cochran County, which borders New Mexico, have imposed Texas’ near-total abortion ban on anyone using its roads for an abortion anywhere.

The Texas Tribune has the deets:

The new travel ordinance in Cochran imposes penalties on people using the county’s roads to knowingly transport someone seeking an abortion, but specifies that under no circumstances should the mother in the scenario be subject to prosecution or penalty. Similar to the sanctuary city ordinance, the act would be enforced through private civil lawsuits.

Cochran is not the first Texas county to do this but it is the first one that borders New Mexico, where abortion remains legal.

Sadly, The Tribune noted that the vote was unanimous among the county commissioners and that nobody spoke in opposition to the fascism.

The Washington Post pointed out in an article about similar efforts elsewhere in Texas, such laws are difficult to enforce and probably unconstitutional. But they are extremely difficult to challenge in court. By granting the power of enforcement to private citizens, there is no government official to sue to block the law, Mary Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California at Davis who focuses on abortion, said.

But maybe none of that matters. “The purpose of these laws is not to meaningfully enforce them,” Neesha Davé, executive director of the Lilith Fund, an abortion fund based in Texas, told The Post. “It’s the fear that’s the point. It’s the confusion that’s the point.”

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