This is some horrifying dystopian bullshit. Already, Texans are lining up to commit economic terrorism on doctors at the Pro-Life Whistleblower site. Report a doctor! Make beaucoup bucks!
The Texas Heartbeat Act is unique because it calls upon private citizens to hold abortion providers and their enablers accountable. Any person can sue any abortion provider who kills an unborn child after six weeks of gestation—and any person can sue anyone who aids or abets these illegal abortions. All of these individuals must pay damages to the person who sued them of at least $10,000 for each illegal abortion that they perform or assist.
Any person can sue any abortion provider, and just reporting them grants you $10,000 dollars.
And our Supreme Court just let this slide.
Here’s one possible solution:
This is a ripe target for Bayesian poisoning attacks, which is a politer way of saying “shitflooding.”
Get a copy of the list of registered Texas Republicans. Iterate down the list twice: for each entry on the left copy, generate a report from every name on the right copy (i.e., nested “for” loop). If you have N entries in this list, I believe this will generate N^N reports. The Peoples’ Undemocratic Republic of Texassistan has got to have well over 1 million registered Republicans. 10^12 is a lot of reports.
Time for monthly pregnancy tests for sexually active women. I’m thinking gynecologists and groups like Planned Parenthood will waste a lot of money on bogus lawsuits.
I have no idea about any specifics of this new reign of terror, but it did occur to me that if there are no limits, then should a woman from, or even perhaps just changing planes in, Texas fly on to say, California and have an abortion (even if that was not the purpose of the trip), then the airline(s), aeroport, and their respective employees — not to mention those who fueled the aircraft and so on — could be bounty-hunted (reported) as aiding or abetting the abortion. No sensible person or company would want to risk a potentially indefinite and indeterminate stream of $10,000 payment claims. Basically, using this admittedly questionable hypothesis, Texas has just terminated all interstate travel and commerce from, to, or via Texas.
I say we pick a day and an hour and every single one of us start emailing that hotline all at once. I’ll bet we could bring it down in five minutes.
@4/Ray
I kind of like my idea better since it’s scriptable, much higher-payload, and would harm the people who deserve the harm.
If the Biden Justice Department actually has the guts to do it, there’s an easy fix. It is a federal felony to violate someone else’s federal civil rights, which, so long as Roe remains on the books, would include the right to get an abortion. So every time some plaintiff files a lawsuit against an abortion provider, the Justice Department should indict both the plaintiff and the lawyer who filed the suit for violation of federal civil rights. I’ll bet it wouldn’t take more than a couple of well publicized indictments to shut the whole thing down.
@Ray Ceeya, #4: I’m in. Let us all know the date and time.
I wonder if the consequences have to be intentional. Looking forward to what the Law of Unintended Consequences has to say about this.
I just want to find a way to shift the predatory state-sanctioned harassment back on the harassers, and especially the law makers responsable. Anti-abortion politics requires the use of force, always. People would just get abortions otherwise.
Wondering if the ABETTING has to be intentional.
You know, some days there’s not nearly enough coffee in the universe…
@9/Brony
…umm, I’ve stated a way complete with pseudocode as to how to do it in this case. Are my posts invisible? Have I been shadowbanned or something?
@12 Marissa van Eck
My apologies. I responded to the post and the rage hadn’t faded enough to process comments yet.
@1 Marissa
Avoiding duplicate entries gives (N^2)/2 reports, by my count. I like the idea, though. If it’s going be a WBC-style dumpster fire, may as well make the Republicans sleep a little less comfortably at night.
@1, @13: (N*(N-1))/2, avoiding self-sending — but who’s counting?
I hope these spamtastic motions get treated with at least the same reverence and physical representation as Mormon baptisms for the dead. Bonus points if a temple ritual is required for the magic to work.
The legal details of this whole bizarre system seem (based on descriptions I’ve seen on social media) generally unclear and open to courtroom wrestling, which is undoubtedly very much by design.
After all, legal uncertainty combined with the threat of aggressive lawsuit harassment should be perfect for ensuring that any Texas abortion providers will not try to continue providing even very early abortions. Other major targets for vigilante harassment could be PP clinics and such that continue to provide non-abortion services, and anyone who might actually perform black market abortions. Harassment of anyone else under this law will be of secondary importance, and largely just collateral damage.
Since it is estimated that 15% of pregnancies end in miscarriage and those are obviously caused by God, I’d suggest that we sue God’s representatives on earth, we can start with Joel Osteen, he has the money to spare.
/sarcasm
I’ve seen memes that claim TikTokers are already flooding the reporting site.
Follow-up to @3, A snippet from After the Texas abortion ban, clinics in nearby states brace for demand:
From The 19th’s article (link embedded in above snippet):
So when do we start an evacuation of women and other sane people from the Christian Republic of Y’all Quaeda.
@1/Marissa van Eck, your idea is a more refined version of what I’d been wondering–how can the anti-choice crowd be hoist on their legal petard here?
On the question of self-sending, why do the work to remove the self-self interaction when it would be one more bad case to help overload the Texas system?
Since Republican politicians have likely at some point paid for a lover’s abortion, and/or are likely to do so in future, every concerned citizen in Texas should immediately sue Greg Abbott for $10K. Apparently under this law, even if the complainant loses they don’t have to pay anyone’s legal costs, including their own.
robro @18, I read that too. In fact the Tik Tok/K-pop crowd overwhelmed the site with Shrek memes, many of them obscene.
They don’t have the sophistication to prevent being blocked, though, so the above methods will do the same. i’m even looking into what the OP says, as I can’t write code.
This “abetting” law is quite un-feasible, and won’t last long. And, I bet the first person who files a SLAPP-like suit, harassment or whatever it is, for helping someone travel out of Texas, or for just being a gynecologist, will destroy the whole thing.
I like best, however, what kathleenz@6 suggests. Because it does what Brony @9 correctly says would be best, and shifts the harassment back onto those who set this up. The Justice Department could include all the lawmakers who voted for this denial-of-civil-rights bill in their charges.
Also, how about the federal government funding lots and lots of clinics for free Long-Acting Reversible Contraception for every woman in Texas who wants it, including teenagers without parental consent required? These involve insertion under the skin or placement near the cervix of a device that contain birth-control hormones, like those in the birth-control pill. They are very effective, very well-tested, and have very few side effects. As the name states, they last a long time and can be removed at any time.
That isn’t fixing the Gilead-type situation, but it’s saving a lot of (especially, poor) women from its immediate bad effects.
My condolences.
I think it might be time to realize this is a war. The other side has started a full assault on civil rights and liberties, and they’re not even being subtle anymore. Just listen to the rhetoric of the fanatics.
Everyone who opposes universal healthcare in this country is aiding and abetting. That’s $10k a pop per dead Texan fetus.*
So by the power vested in me, I deputize myself to collect such sums as may be necessary from all aforementioned parties, to be paid forthwith and immediately.
Now that notice has been given, it will just take some time to work through the list. I’ll begin with the governor, then the legislature, and work my way down from there, from each according to their ability. All other adults in the country who are similarly guilty will also receive a big helping of Texas Justice™, but please be patient while we process your payment.
*Additional charges may apply. Please contact our customer service representatives for more information.
“prolifewhistleblower.com” appears to use Google’s email services. I wonder if the purpose of the site might not violate Google terms of service, including:
“respect the rights of others, including privacy and intellectual property rights”
and, “don’t abuse or harm others or yourself (or threaten or encourage such abuse or harm) — for example, by misleading, defrauding, defaming, bullying, harassing, or stalking others”
Hi all, longtime lurker, here.
Sorry for materializing ex nihilo, but here goes:
Would the coders here be willing to make a tutorial or share resources on how to make the bot being discussed for someone who is very much not a coder?
Again, sorry for just crashing in, but I want to help and I know a few folks who I’m sure would also join in given the methods to do so. Thank you in advance/for reading/not hitting me.
@spiramira 27
What hitting? I got criticism. The things I felt like doing would have been the next thing I would have saw.
@Brony 28
I apologize for miscommunicating. I wasn’t referring to anything specific with that bit. I was just trying to end my post with a sort of “I acknowledge I’m being socially clumsy right now, but hey, here’s my tummy, I come in peace” vibe.
@27 spiramira
This leaves out a lot of the heavy lifting of slapping the script together and making it handle unexpected situations, but you can get a handle on how any webpage loads and what happens when you click on things:
1) Use Firefox with an adblocking plugin of your choice and NoScript. Block as much JavaScript as you possibly can while still getting the page to work the way you want it to.
2) Firefox’s Web Developer tools are your friend. Specifically, the Network window. Load a page with that open and it will show every header the browser sends out, every header it receives, and the output of each file it receives during the session, with timestamps. Do what you need to do and it will show you the details.
3) Any and all headers can be copied directly over to a reasonably featureful, lightweight command-line utility like curl. String as many headers as you need into a single request.
From there, if you have friends of the scripting persuasion who are curious enough they can probably figure out what to do.
@Spira Mira 29
My feelings aren’t the important ones in this political context. It’s all done.
@beholder
Much obliged.
This BS tactic has to be killed. It’s a heavy lift, but I think another state should pass a law setting a bounty on those that harass people seeking abortion services. Flipping that script would, I hope, get the Supremes’ attention.
@13 @14
Why are you dividing by 2? AB != BA in this case surely?
erik333@34: Absolutely right. D’oh.
Presumably the people making pregnancy tests. or even doctors making diagnoses, would be responsible for the woman having an abortion as she wouldnt be sure until then
Since there can be no abortion without pregnancy, surely the person with the greatest culpability for aiding and abetting an abortion is the man who provided the sperm?
That was my question and criticism also.
This law is written like males do not exist and women just get pregnant by themselves. There are zero consequences for the sperm donors.
It is extremely discriminatory and anti-woman.
What is the penalty for a male that gets someone pregnant who goes on to get an abortion or who ends up as a female slave forced to give birth to a baby she didn’t want and can’t take care of?
https://twitter.com/iamgabesanchez/status/1433532350495805441
Video available at the Twitter link.
iOS shortcut – https://icloud.com/shortcuts/46272ecbe1d44d9eb1bedce98a7f61b0
This is why I’m glad that there are people who know things I don’t . Conservatives/ fundies and in the USA republicans are a bane of existence and have been so since I could remember. They’ll do anything that makes life miserable for people they don’t like and don’t want to live their own lives and that includes women.
My history teacher went over the Texas Abortion Law, because current events are often history repeating, and he wanted us to be informed about the dangers of theocracy. In his words, “It doesn’t matter what I feel about abortion. But when the laws come from someone’s Bible, that’s where I draw the line.”
I’m very worried about this, even though I’m not in the demographic to really get pregnant, (except, god forbid, assault), because I want a better life for people, and if this continues, it may lead to Roe V. Wade getting overthrown.
In happier news, I submitted some hand-written..er..content to that site. And one form where the answers were all: My C***.
“It doesn’t matter what I feel about abortion. But when the laws come from someone’s Bible, that’s where I draw the line.”
the weird thing is… abortion is OK in the bible.
your history teacher doesn’t realize what the real problem is.
“Flipping that script would, I hope, get the Supremes’ attention.”
you keep acting like the majority of current SCOTUS use actual reason and evidence in their decision-making. they just do as they are told to.
you have 2 choices: Threaten Biden so he will flood the court and destroy it.
or destroy it yourselves.
that’s it. those are your two choices.
btw, just for shits and giggles, this is what my antivirus program has to say about the whistleblower site:
“Visiting an untrustworthy website has been prevented
One or more of this website’s certificates are invalid, so we can’t guarantee its authenticity. This happens when the website’s owner hasn’t updated the certificate in time, or if it’s a fake site created by scammers. Visiting a website like this makes you more vulnerable to attack.
You were protected from visiting this website by Kaspersky security. You can close this window with no risk.”