Texas laws on abortion are getting too sticky and way beyond uncomfortable.
A new law that would make it unlawful to drive on its roadways in search of an abortion is slated to be discussed next Thursday in a remote Texas county that borders New Mexico.
The proposed blockade in Cochran County, Texas, which has 2,500 residents, is the most recent instance of a Texas county trying to limit access to its highways for particular groups of people. Abortion rights activists and legal experts say this action is unconstitutional and intended to instill fear.
At least two Texas counties have adopted such prohibitions, according to media reports. The first county that borders a state where abortion is permitted to enact such a rule would probably be Cochran County. Ellis and Goliad counties have passed similar rules as well.
Numerous Texans have traveled to New Mexico, Kansas, Colorado, and other states to end their pregnancies since Texas passed the nation's harshest abortion regulations in September 2021. Anti-abortion campaigners have followed several Texas abortion clinics that were forced to reopen in New Mexico after being subjected to what is now a nearly total ban.
"You may believe this isn't going to affect you because it's in some tiny little town you're never going to drive through," said Wendy Davis, a former state legislator and current senior adviser at Planned Parenthood Texas Votes. A reproductive jail is being created in the state of Texas by attempting, one by one, to impose a statewide prohibition on travel to other states.
Houston's KHOU TV reported in their story earlier this month, "It shall be unlawful for any person to knowingly transport any individual for the purpose of providing or obtaining an elective abortion, regardless of where the elective abortion will occur. This section shall apply only if the transportation of such individual begins, ends or passes through the unincorporated area of Goliad County," the Goliad County ordinance said.
It means that if a person drives a pregnant woman through Goliad County with the purpose of getting an out-of-state abortion, the driver can be sued, not by the county, but by another citizen.
"They permit you to sue anyone who aids and abets someone crossing state lines in order to procure an abortion," University of Houston Professor of Law Seth Chandler said.
Chandler said there's one problem with the ordinances: interstate travel is a constitutional right.
"I suppose the sponsors of this ordinance feel that that is constitutional. They’re gravely mistaken. It is not constitutional to restrict interstate travel that way, nor is it constitutional to give anyone in the world the right to sue," Chandler said.
If someone is accused of breaking the ordinance, they could be sued and the unconstitutionality of it would be worked out in the courts.
Judge Pat Henry, the county's elected executive, claimed in a phone conversation with the Texas Tribune that a commissioner urged him to put it on the schedule.
The director of Right To Life of East Texas, an anti-abortion organization that has pushed for comparable local regulations across the state, Mark Lee Dickson, expressed confidence that they will be upheld in court.
Dickson said in a statement to The Texas Tribune that the "abortion trafficking ordinances do not interfere with the right to travel." Only individuals who use county roadways to transport expectant women across state lines for abortion purposes are subject to the ordinances' penalties.
Sen. Charles Perry of Lubbock is among the 20 state legislators who signed the letter that Dickson's group is disseminating, urging local governments to implement these laws.
Despite being a small county, it is located roughly 60 miles west of Lubbock, and its location may be important for pregnant women passing through. Highways 114, 214, and 125 are three state highways that pass through Cochran County.
Despite Texas having one of the most stringent abortion laws in the country, the battle for access has persisted with travel restrictions. By relying on local governments to pass laws, the proponents of these ordinances are following a tried-and-true strategy that could result in legal disputes.
According to Charles "Rocky" Rhodes, a professor at the South Texas College of Law, "The Supreme Court has provided a lot of protection to the right to travel from state to state in a lot of prior decisions."
Similar laws banning abortion-related travel on county roadways were approved earlier this year in Goliad County, near South Texas, and Mitchell County, in West Texas. Both rely on locals filing civil lawsuits against people they think have broken the law.
The constitutional right to freedom of movement and the manner in which the code would be applied, according to Rhodes, offer two issues with this regulation. Rhodes explained that in civil trials, the plaintiff usually needs to demonstrate how the defendant directly injured them.
Additional language was included in Senate Bill 8, a 2021 Texas law that outlaws abortions after around six weeks of pregnancy and is solely enforced through civil lawsuits. Rhodes claimed that up until this point, "Texas courts had dismissed these lawsuits on the grounds that the plaintiffs in the test cases were unable to file claims because they were not directly harmed by the illegal abortions."
The state statute that permits Texans to sue one another if they seek an abortion after approximately six weeks of pregnancy is one of the similar laws that Rhodes mentioned. "That issue is winding through the Texas appellate system right now," Rhodes said in reference to the case.
So with regard to these two issues, Rhodes continued, "You really have to view these ordinances more in terms of trying to frighten people, rather than something that will be able to be enforced in court."
The so-called abortion trafficking act was previously discussed in Llano, a city in Central Texas about 75 miles northwest of Austin, but the city council temporarily delayed the proposal. Council members in Chandler, which is roughly 13 miles west of Tyler, delayed enacting the ordinance because of ethical dilemmas.
Councilwoman Janice Lunsford of Chandler, according to The Washington Post, stated, "I believe we're making a mistake if we do this."
Davis claimed that because the right to travel is protected by the Constitution, these ordinances are meaningless and only serve to confuse and frighten people.
"It's a joke, according to Davis, to think that someone would be able to tell that someone driving alongside them on a road was going to obtain an abortion. "It's just absurd to think that we would set up some sort of checkpoints to figure out why someone was passing through a neighborhood."
Davis claimed that even though the restrictions are unenforceable, they nonetheless have an impact. More regulations and rhetoric could intimidate expectant mothers and drive away medical professionals.
Because of ridiculous radicals, Davis claimed, "We are losing OB-GYNs who were in our state and fear practicing here in the future." In the end, even those who desire to become pregnant and require assistance to deliver healthy babies will no longer have access to necessary medical care.
This is an ongoing story and Legal Affairs Reporter C.J. Walker will publish updates as they develop.
Legal Affairs Reporter C.J. Walker can be reached at HoustonNewsToday@yahoo.com
Comments / 51