September, 01 2021, 12:26pm EDT
Overturn Texas' Vigilante Abortion Law NOW
Statement by National NOW President Christian F. Nunes
WASHINGTON
By not taking action on its own to block Senate Bill 8 (S.B. 8), the U.S. Supreme Court upended our system of laws in favor of vigilante justice. At six-weeks, many do not yet know they are pregnant, and without access to safe abortions, millions of people in Texas could be forced to go to extreme or dangerous measures.
S.B. 8 also allows anyone to sue abortion providers and any individual who helps a person obtain an abortion- from doctors to counselors to clinic escorts -and earn a profit of $10,000 for each successful claim. This would create a roving gang of vigilante anti-abortion extremists who would be state-sanctioned harassers, following people into clinics, intimidating them at their homes, and even suing those who drive friends or family to obtain an abortion.
This legal action effectively overturns Roe v. Wade in Texas. Instead of being able to access abortion care, Texans instead face the harsh hypocrisy that bodily autonomy is only guaranteed to some. It's an end run around the Constitution, an assault on our values as citizens and an assault on our reproductive freedom. Instead of keeping enforcement of our laws in the hands of state officials, prosecutors and health departments, it gives members of the public that authority--replacing professional expertise and legal standing with racism, misogyny and extremism.
Abortion providers have filed an emergency application to block the law, which is rooted in systemic oppression and disproportionately impacts marginalized communities. NOW urges the Supreme Court to act on this application immediately and protect Roe. We must continue to sound the alarm on these attacks on reproductive freedom and prevent S.B. 8 and any other similar laws from being enacted across the country. Abortion access is hanging by a thread.
The National Organization for Women (NOW) is the largest organization of feminist activists in the United States. NOW has 500,000 contributing members and 550 chapters in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
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A campaign finance watchdog on Wednesday filed a Federal Election Commission complaint accusing former President Donald Trump's 2024 campaign, affiliated political groups, and an accounting firm of violating U.S. law in a scheme "seemingly designed to obscure the true recipients of a noteworthy portion of Trump's legal bills."
The Washington, D.C.-based Campaign Legal Center (CLC) said that "evidence appears to show an illegal arrangement between several Trump-affiliated committees and a compliance firm named Red Curve Solutions that is designed to obscure the identities of those providing legal services and how much they are being paid."
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Trump—who is the presumptive 2024 GOP presidential nominee—faces 91 federal and state felony charges related to his role in the January 6 insurrection and his organization's business practices. He is currently on trial in New York for allegedly falsifying business records related to hush money payments to cover up sex scandals during the 2016 election cycle. The twice-impeached former president has been open about his use of campaign donations to pay his legal costs.
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