Lubbock County, Texas, joins a group of other rural Texas counties that have voted to ban women from using their roads to seek abortions.
This comes after six cities and counties in Texas have passed abortion-related bans, out of nine that have considered them. However, this ordinance makes Lubbock the biggest jurisdiction yet to pass restrictions on abortion-related transportation.
During Monday’s meeting, the Lubbock County Commissioners Court passed an ordinance banning abortion, abortion-inducing drugs and travel for abortion in the unincorporated areas of Lubbock County, declaring Lubbock County a “Sanctuary County for the Unborn.”
The ordinance is part of a continued strategy by conservative activists to further restrict abortion since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade as the ordinances are meant to bolster Texas’ existing abortion ban, which allows private citizens to sue anyone who provides or “aids or abets” an abortion after six weeks of pregnancy.
The ordinance, which was introduced to the court last Wednesday, was passed by a vote of 3-0 with commissioners Terence Kovar, Jason Corley and Jordan Rackler, all Republicans, voting to pass the legislation while County Judge Curtis Parrish, Republican, and Commissioner Gilbert Flores, Democrat, abstained from the vote.
This is incredibly fucked up. Handmaid’s tale was a documentary.
Get ready for highway checkpoints for pregnant women, coming to a red state near you.
“I noticed your had a license plate light out, Ma’am. Please get out of the car and pee on this test strip.”
“No, ma’am, right here in public while I watch. We need to make sure, that the liquid on the strip is in fact your pee…”
Complete with fences, barbed wire and “papers, please”
Atwood specifically called it speculative fiction, because everything written in there had happened already in some other form.
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Good thing we’re only talking about zygotes and embryos then huh?
Bro didn’t you see their username? They provide guru level insights. Probably a mod in Tate’s telegram channel that was about exploiting women
Same thing
Abortion is a sacrament
How tf would they even enforce this?
“Are you traveling to get an abortion?” “No, I’m going to visit family”
How would they prove otherwise? Is there something I’m missing?
The correct answer is “I don’t want to talk about my day.”
“Go f*ck yourself” is also an acceptable answer.
Good luck and godspeed using that approach with a rural county sheriff’s office in Texas. No, they cannot enforce this, and you should probably just politely deflect the question and gtfo
As a middle aged white guy with no desire to go anywhere near Texas, my Internet blustering doesn’t hold much water on this topic.
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This only impacts unincorporated portions of the county, which are extremely rural
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During Monday’s meeting, the Lubbock County Commissioners Court passed an ordinance banning abortion, abortion-inducing drugs and travel for abortion in the unincorporated areas of Lubbock County
No, as unsafe as it may be, more people need to openly give pushback against their policies.
Just make sure you have bail money.
" Am I being detained or am I free to go?" If detained “then you shut the fuck up!”
It’s even better if you say “I invoke my fifth amendment right to stay silent” and then shut the fuck up.
Every day is Shut The Fuck Up Friday
Three people got busted in a raid. Third guy shut the fuck up, and the DA did not prosecute. They can’t prove what you’re doing there.
Then the Texas police will provide an abortion for you vida beatings.
You’re missing the right to privacy in your phone. Make sure you didn’t put the clinic into Google maps or make a call to them ahead of time. Governmental AI is on the way and it will be steered by the same people making these rules.
Just keep a strong password on your phone, and disable biometrics if you’re travelling for abortion.
They can’t compel the password out of you, but they can compel a finger print, or pointing it at your face unlock.
You should look up geofence warrants, that are now very, very common.
They can subpoena google or apple for anyone traveling through their jurisdiction to specific areas.
Yep. One should never use a smartphone with the intent of ever breaking a law. It’s nothing but a huge papertrail for law enforcement. Believe in parallel construction and don’t believe stories of safely encrypted data in either iOS or Android.
Well that’s fucked…
Or anyone who makes a particular search.
Quickly tapping or holding the lock button on an iPhone will disable biometric entry until a pin is entered.
Thats useful, but if I’m doing something where I’m concerned I might have my phone checked (airports, border crossing etc), I’d rather just turn it off off, instead of having to remember to do that, or do it each time I unlock my phone in those circumstances.
Could be easy to forget in the moment.
Great if it’s truly unexpected
If you think they are going to get this info directly off your phone, you are pretty naive. It’s social media where they will harvest this data. Locking your phone is like holding your pinky up to avoid getting wet in a storm.
I imagine that someone trying to get an abortion won’t be too public about it on social media…
Even if they are, that shouldn’t stop them from seeking or receiving healthcare. Fuck this evil GOP bullshit.
That’s being shortsighted about things. Remember the story of how Target knew a girl was pregnant. You think if they are going to dig for evidence, they wouldn’t just use tactics like that. You won’t have to announce you have had an abortion, but I am sure certain actions that are tracked by social media will scream it out for you. I don’t understand why I am downvoted on my previous post. I am merely trying to warn people about the dangers of letting big companies or govt collect all this information on us. But hey, I guess people don’t care enough to stop it.
I mean, there’s that mother who was jailed because there was evidence of aiding an abortion in her private Facebook messages, so it’s not like there isn’t even immediate precedent.
There’s a complete lack of understanding about privacy on these sites. People will make mistakes, especially younger people seeking abortions. Even adults will make that mistake as seen here.
Target knew she was pregnant because she was buying stuff like pregnancy tests and prenatal vitamins. It wasn’t all that hard to deduce. So yeah, if you’re researching abortion providers or asking your social network to help you obtain an abortion, social media/google will know. But it isn’t some subtle behavior that clues them into it.
Sure, if you are familiar with this person and are close enough to them to know these details it’s probably easy to figure out. The ease of which they can deduce things is only part of the concern. It’s the fact that they can, will, and have used this data against people is the real point here. Once these officials suspect that someone has traversed their county seeking an abortion, it’s just a matter of time before they start submitting subpoenas to various social media for their data on these heinous individuals daring to use their roads for nefarious purposes…
They don’t. Even when it starts ruining lives and loved ones start disappearing, they won’t give a shit.
They want this. They want others to do anything they want so long as they aren’t inconvenienced or hurt, and if they are, as long as they aren’t rendered homeless, and even then, as long as they aren’t imprisoned.
They are cowed through decades of propaganda, ready for the slaughter.
It basically gives them an excuse to detain any woman they want, which is the purpose.
Great, more prison rape leading to pregnancies.
GOP are wanting to Make America Great Again! You know, the good ol’ days when women would have to marry their rapist!
LEAs have been shown to actively track women who use search engines or messaging services to seek information about abortion services. There’s a non-zero chance that women who they suspect, and their friends and family, are tagged in their system when they search the plates of someone passing by.
It’s not about lying to cops, particularly if they can already prove you were seeking those services in the first place. At that point they’ll arrest you with probable cause.
They already use that kind of system with drug dealers. If they suspect you sell drugs, they will tag your name and plate and find a reason to pull you over if they spot you. Why would they hesitate to track women like that?
Arrest on suspicion?
It goes like this:
We know you’re traveling to get an abortion, we have your messages and search history. It is illegal to use this highway for that purpose. You are under arrest.
Whether they are correct in issuing an arrest doesn’t matter for them because they have qualified immunity. They let the courts sort it out.
I was just having this conversation the other day. The person was absolutely confounded how in the world this law would be enforced. I essentially said that it doesn’t matter. Cops will stop you for whatever, arrest you for whatever, send you to jail for whatever, doesn’t matter. If they’re wrong, oh well, that’s the court’s job.
Easy, women shouldn’t be allowed to use highways period. Then they won’t be able to drive to abortions.
Fuck it, women shouldn’t be allowed to drive. Long live the United States of Saudi Arabia!
They cannot because they do not have jurisdiction at all. You can’t prosecute someone for doing something legal in another area.
That’s the loophole they’re trying to use. You can’t punish them for the abortion, so you punish them for using public roads for disallowed purposes (driving to abortion). They do have jurisdiction over road use.
They dont really have jurisdiction over road use because of the interstate commerce clause either.
Thats why they claim this bullshit law doesnt cause any conflict, because they aren’t restricting use of the road, they are just “making it easier for private citizens to sue people that help women doing something legal one state over” which is of course restricting use of the road, but pretending its not.
Yeah, it’s absolutely ridiculous and hopefully it won’t stand up to a challenge. But the fact that it exists, and no one wants to be the one going to court to fight the government, means that it will still have an effect on these women.
There’s two things that apply in this situation. The first is that like several other states, they’re not making getting an abortion in another state illegal, they’re making traveling on their infrastructure for the purposes of obtaining an abortion in another state illegal. Is that an unconstitutional restriction on interstate commerce? Who the fuck knows anymore? I don’t think it will hold, but I didn’t expect Justice Thomas to rise like Cthulhu from his eternal and well grifted slumber to kill Roe, so I’m not offering an opinion on that.
The second way, and this is also worrying me, is that while they can’t make flying to California to smoke pot illegal, they can make having pot in your system when you land back in Texas illegal. If they can’t make having an abortion in CA illegal, can they still use medical records to track that your pregnancy was terminated out of state, and prosecute you on a charge after returning to the state with a terminated pregnancy?
To be honest, I think that will fail too, but I’m sure it’ll land on the books someplace.
I’m also sure that these will all become national level laws because people still think politics is a team sport, and if it does not terrify you that the worst president in the history of the US and with openly fascist statements of taking full control and going after his enemies is running neck and neck with just a regular pre-2000s style politician, you’re either not paying attention or you’re privileged as all fuck.
This is my take as well. I hope folks figure it out and that laws like these get wiped out.
This is why I as a Canadian can’t fathom why Americans seem to think they have more freedom than I do somehow. To me the whole “States Rights” debacle essentially gives Americans two countries worth of laws that they are bound by instead of one.
The fact the US also enforces it’s laws on non-citizens for things done outside it’s country legally gives the whole thing the sense of the US being drunk on it’s own sovereignty. Like it’s legal to smoke pot here but if you are tricked into mentioning at a US boarder crossing that you EVER smoked weed on Canadian soil even if it was in the distant past you risk being forever barred from entry into the US.
And to be clear this is not their citizens doing things in their own country that are not illegal by the measure of that country’s law. From what I understand there isn’t much of an appeal process either because once it’s done our citizenry suddenly goes into category “not my monkey not my circus”.
The US is very very fond of restriction of freedoms from an outsider perspective.
I’m not super sure that applies here - they aren’t being punished (legally) for getting the abortion, but for using the roads to get there. It seems to me conceptually similar to how European companies aren’t allowed to sell drugs that are used for lethal injection to the US, even though those drugs are legal to sell in Europe: They aren’t being punished for taking part in an execution that’s legal where it happens, just for doing something that enables it in a place where it isn’t legal. Same deal here.
I’m sure it’s an unconstitutional/illegal law for some other reason, I just don’t think this specific reason applies.
I’m excited to see the faces when this is used to regulate guns.
Sorry sir, but in this here county you can’t take guns out of your yard. To include bringing them in the first place.
The guns that are in your home stay put and your rights are intact.
Nope, that will not happen. Our 2A rights are iron-clad and that would be a clear infringement on the right to bear arms.
When pulled over, any interaction beyond what is required by law should be not answered or answered with something along the lines of invoking the 5th. There are a bazillion YouTube lawyers that all the say this.
If you need directions, put in something that isn’t the abortion place, but has it along the way, like a national park or other tourist place, some conference, etc. Then put in the real destination when you get across the border.
These types of laws tend to rely on someone close to the pregnant person calling the cops, usually family. These communities passing these laws are full of people who would eagerly jail their children for getting an abortion.
No no, not their children. Their child’s abortion is necessary. Their child has so much potential and Jesus will forgive them for it.
You childs abortion? You’re a heathen that will burn in hell for baby murder.
The big issue is that it’s not law enforcement that enforce this, it’s everyday people - and those people are given immunity by this law.
Just some advice here: don’t answer questions.
A cop pulls you over “I don’t answer questions”, “I’d like to speak to a lawyer.”, “I do not consent to a search.”, “I would like to speak to a lawyer.”
If they keep asking questions. Do not respond with anything other than “I would like to speak to a lawyer.” Be polite; but you are far more likely to incriminate yourself than not.
The more you say, they more they can use against you.
And be recording all of this to the cloud while you’re at it.
make sure to record without unlocking your phone, if that’s the route you’re going to go. Also. Don’t use biometrics to unlock your phone. Use a pin. Less convenient, sure, but your face/fingerprint is “evidence”, but they can’t compel you to give up your pin.
not that it’s going to do much at all. there’s tools that they can use to crack inside of… moments.
I think it would likely be used to add extra charges after the fact ie did you get caught? Then you must have also commited this crime on top of the others. Then again I might be ascribing logic where there is none.
Oh, you now committed 3 crimes in the process of having your abortion, that’s now a life sentence without parole!
Straight up intimidation. Women will now be pulled over and asked questions that are nobody’s business, not to mention it gets more women pulled over and in danger of being assaulted by police.
Depends. Are they black/brown?
Easy. Arrest all pregnant women traveling.
Who is going to stop them?
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They could just have checkpoints on the exit roads on the state. There are a lot of things Texas republicans are doing with police, namely allowing them to be border patrol agents with authority to deport people. This, along with precedent being pushed that police can find probable cause after the fact that you’re arrested, police can just arrest first because they saw a women “who looked pregnant.” I foresee women becoming second class citizens really soon in red states, and its really troubling.
Everything else aside, that’s about as clear a violation of the Commerce Clause as you can get.
The inability of states to regulate interstate commerce was settled by the courts in 1824.
The same laws that allows firearms to be shipped through states where they’re illegal protects abortion-seekers on Texas roads
was settled by the courts in 1824.
Nothing is “settled” with the current Supreme Court.
Commerce Clause is about as settled as it can get, though. Especially with a Court so enamoured with Founders Intent. Gibbons v Ogden is probably only behind Marbury v Madison in sacred status to this Court.
It’s cute that you still have faith in conservatives doing anything consistently
Overturning Gibbons would do more harm to the conservative cause than good.
The entire West Coast is liberal-controlled states. They could legally tax or simply cut off any goods or services bound for conservative states originating from or passing through their states.
All to defend a law that’s essentially unenforceable from a practical standpoint.
Again, you’re assuming conservatives have any sort of consistency or logic. They’ll just make up some BS that keeps things moving the way they want.
Even they have limits they won’t pass because it would blow everything up.
I remember when I was this naive
“Sorry, but after the gutting of Roe, stare decisis only applies to things conservatives and/or billionaire overlords approve of” – SCOTUS
Conservatives and billionaires absolutely approve of the Commerce Clause.
Overturning Gibbons would allow California to tax all internet traffic coming through LA from the rest of the world, or allow liberal states to seize high-capacity magazines being shipped across state lines.
Imagine Facebook having to pay import/export taxes every time someone accessed their account.
It would be the most impactful SCOTUS decision of all time, and would be absolutely ruinous to the business interests of the wealthy.
Stare decisis has only ever applied to things the justices approve of. It’s just that this may be the most fucked up group we’ve ever had. If all the former judges were also lovers of stare decisis, most of our civil rights would not be here, because many of those have been when previous judgements were overturned. Just think about the segregation of schools. Was Brown v The Board of Education not a reversal of Plessy v Ferguson?
The concept has always been about a bullshit homage that lawyers and judges dance around.
SCOTUS allowed the abortion bounty law SB8 to stand before Roe was overturned. It was clearly unconstitutional. So, they’re just expanding on it to the next logical steps.
Something something it’s not commerce because reasons.
Nevermind that the Commerce Clause has been cited to give the federal government authority to prohibit activities that are neither commerce nor inter-state, such as growing cannabis for personal use on your own property.
Schroedinger’s commerce. It’s commerce only when it’s convenient for prohibitionists.
The federal government doesn’t outlaw abortion, so they can’t use the Commerce Clause to enforce abortion restrictions enacted by the states.
However, the issues you cite with them being bullies with the commerce clause are centered on authority granted through Gibbons.
Gibbons was specifically about states trying to enforce laws (specifically state-granted steamboat monopolies) within their borders that had a direct impact on commerce within another state. The Supreme Court declared that a violation of the commerce clause because only the Federal Government can regulate interstate commerce.
Texas passing laws prohibiting travel to another state to seek abortions (which are federally legal) could only be allowed by SCOTUS by overturning Gibbons, which would be absolutely devastating.
That would be by far the most-impactful reversal in the Court’s history, and it can’t be overstated how much of a grenade it would be. Everybody would lose, and the GOP’s owners more than anyone else.
If SCOTUS were insistent (and consistent) that only the federal government had the power to regulate interstate commerce, yet this Texas jurisdiction is trying to do just that, wouldn’t that logically be in violation of the Commerce Clause and SCOTUS would have to strike down?
I was arguing that SCOTUS isn’t consistent on this, but pretend they were.
They’d have trouble ignoring this one. This is isn’t tangentially related to interstate commerce.
The law is explicitly about preventing people from passing through a territory to engage in legal commerce in another state. Violation of the Commerce Clause isn’t a byproduct of the law - it’s the sole intent.
IANAL: how exactly is this going to get overturned? The courts have already gotten rid of offender observer standing so the only way would be if this is actually enforced at which point the Supreme Court could simply allow the appeals court ruling stand.
Why does Texas hate freedom so much?
Doesn’t this run afoul of the commerce clause?
A random ass County can’t ban travel on any roads or highway for any reason, right? That’s strictly the job of congress.
Also I’d like to add:
How about this worthless board look into why there is so much crime in the county before Talibaning travel for women?
Because Lubbock is a meth-infested shithole in the middle of nowhere. The only thing to do there is drugs, alcohol, rape, and domestic violence.
Truly a “Sanctuary County for the Unborn.”
Board: “that’s almost where we want things, let’s see if we can pump up those chances”
My first thought as well. There is NO way this doesn’t get struck down in a court case. If you can’t even ban guns on streets near schools (US v. Lopez) then you definitely can’t ban a person from driving on a road to get to a medical procedure in a different state.
Have you seen the other decisions made by SCOTUS?
They don’t give a shit about consistency or law or precedent. They are politicians put there to deliver specific outcomes.
They do care about precedent, usually too much in my opinion. There have been many cases in the last few years brought to SCOTUS seeking the overturning of the doctrine of Qualified Immunity, but SCOTUS has in all cases either not taken them up or not ruled on that issue. They basically keep saying, “we’ve already ruled on this, we won’t touch it unless Congress changes the law in some way.” Dobbs was like the one issue SCOTUS has actually overturned a previous opinion on in recent years.
It’s not a ban, per se, it “just” opens people up to civil liability. The reason they do it that way is to skirt the Constitution.
My guess is this is what will doom this law, specifically since they’re also looking at drugs which are certainly commodities from out of state.
It might also be a prior restraint case depending on if traveling to a women’s healthcare provider is protected expression.
Like, the problem for the county here is trying to stop people from doing something they can’t prove they’re actually going to do.
They might be able to plus up other charges based on using county property in the commission of some other “crime” (gigantic air quotes). Sort of like getting extra charges due to using the USPS to commit a crime.
Exactly. They’d have to prove you were specifically going there to get an abortion.
Cops can’t stop you because you were on your way to a bank, just because they feel you might want to rob it. You have to have actually done something illegal in the first place.
Cops can’t stop you because you were on your way to a bank, just because they feel you might want to rob it.
LOL Sure, in theory they can’t, but in reality cops do stop people for any made up reason and they can also shoot you for any made up reason without consequence.
And “pro-life” people will support every cop that kills a pregnant woman on that highway.
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All they have is performative politics.
Or they hope it sticks. If they flood the courts with enough egregiously fucked up laws some are bound to slip through.
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The big stick that the federal government has in this case (regarding highway travel) is funding. Considering where funding bills typically start, I don’t think we can blame the president for this one.
Maybe women should just GTFO of Texas. Anything vag related and doctors won’t want to do anything incase you’re pregnant.
I think getting the fuck out of Texas is exactly what this legislation is attempting to prevent. If they get away with this, I’d doubt they’ll stop there, either. Never mind abortion, this will set the precedent that they can legally “prevent” you from using public road infrastructure for any particular purpose they feel like.
It doesn’t take a legal expert to see why the line of reasoning they’re using to justify this is horseshit, nor to grasp just how dangerous this type of thing is.
Proving Obama’s “you didn’t build that” statement.
That’s often easier said then done
That’s easy to say, not so simple to do. Especially when friends and family ask why you are moving far from them ans your job. To speak nothing of the costs for Interstate moving.
“I just don’t want to live here anymore” or “the other place seems nice” is perfectly valid. The cost part is unfortunate though.
Then we need to band together and help sneak people out of Texas.
🤔 Do they have anti-abortion travel laws if you use a bus or a train?
Can’t let this virus spread. It has to be fought at the source.
Maybe women should just GTFO of Texas
That’s the idea. Republicans want a permanent majority in Texas, and they’re making the state as inhospitable as possible to anyone who might vote against them.
They are losing the battle as the state is slowly becoming more purple
Why do you think they’re trying so hard?
Texas bans Woman …
Woman ban Texas !
Next up they will advise women to carry a note from thier husband or father detailing where they are going so they can avoid suspicion. The cops will pull them over and ask for thier papers.
Dude shut up! They do not need new ideas!!!
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Honestly, yes. The nominal reason we give states federal money for highways that there’s a benefit to other states from one state having highways passing through it. If you’re not going to non-selectively give use of your highways, you’re not universally benefiting your neighboring states, so you shouldn’t get the money.
Now, the actual reason we take tax money from people in one state, give it to the federal government, just to have the it dish the money back out to the states is so the federal government gets a bunch of leverage over the states. It’s not actually efficient to collect a bunch of money, which costs money, and then give most of it back, which also costs money. It’s about control.
“Texas wants to imprison women.” FTFY
Texas hates women ftfy
Texas hates
women ftfyFtfy
To be fair, we all hate them too
Texas
FTFY
Need more slaves for the private prison industry.
Cool… driving whilst pregnant is the latest thing to fear US police over then. Wait until the first pregnant woman is shot as part of a routine traffic stop checking for abortion plans.
I’m sorry but this makes Texas less than a third world country. This is just backwards and medieval.
Pregnancy check road blocks sure sound fun
I am just wondering: how?
Women who are a month pregnant don’t show they are. Are they really going to ask every women to piss on a stick?
they can’t but they want to. They will also scream libertarianism until they pop a blood vessel but will want the government to fund it.
Yes, and then rape the pretty ones. Murder the Black ones.
That’s literally their plan.
And then they scream “freedom” and wave flags like it means something.
The Party of Small Government, Ladies and Gentlemen. The most grotesque joke since The Aristocrats.
Who was the comedian that said “The party of government so small you can shove it up your vagina” or something to that effect.
This won’t be directly enforced. It will be used to add more punishment to those caught trying to get an abortion.
Not just those getting an abortion, but anyone helping them. It’s designed to isolate pregnant women so that they have no one to turn to if they need help.
Very true
Or more worryingly, used as an excuse by cops to stop any woman they want whenever they want on suspicion they’re trying to get an abortion.
And then they can force women to take pregnancy tests on the spot, which will require stripping for giving urine samples, giving police plausible deniability to rape whoever they want.
Mark my words, it WILL happen.
Cops are going to pull over women and rape them, getting them pregnant where they will be forced to carry out the pregnancy.
Cops have raped women before in Texas, this guarantees it’ll happen again.
It will, but being pregnant is the not same as wanting to get an abortion. I wonder how they’ll prove that.
this is the dumbest antifreedom thing I’ve seen in months. just how can anyone think this is a good idea.
I bet the cookers who dreamt up this scheme were against covid lockdowns aswell
just how can anyone think this is a good idea.
Oh, that’s an easy one! Fascists.
Cookers?
cooked idiots who fall for all manner of extremist stuff online. antivax movement in a nutshell
They just care that it sounds good to pro-life voters and donors who haven’t thought too hard about it.
How the fuck do you even enforce this?
