One More Thing about the Texas Abortion Bill

One-Star Reviews?

Curmie has been putting off writing about one of the most contentious issues of late, especially to those of us currently inhabiting the 1-star state (kudos to whoever first described the “Lone Star” as representing our Yelp rating), namely the new abortion law.  

What Curmie doesn’t want to talk about is whether abortion should or shouldn’t be legal or under what circumstances it should or shouldn’t be.  There are good, intelligent, and moral people at virtually every spot on the spectrum.  Maybe the absolute extremes in either direction are untenable, but Curmie knows of few zealots who would insist that a fetus should be prioritized over the life of the mother and literally no one who thinks that a late term pregnancy should be aborted simply as a means of birth control.

Determining the beginning of human life, after all, is a matter of philosophy more than biology.  At first breath, as even evangelical churches were proclaiming into Curmie’s teens?  At conception?  At viability?  There are reasonable arguments for any of these positions.  And must these positions be regarded as absolutist?  Might it be reasonable to argue that abortion ought to be illegal as a form of birth control but not for victims of rape or incest?  When two ethical positions collide, a compromise solution may be the best available option.  Or perhaps not.

So whereas Curmie is firmly in the pro-choice camp, and would be particularly insistent regarding rape or incest victims, he holds no animosity for those who have an honest disagreement with his position.  This geniality does not extend, however, to the authors of the Texas bill, those who voted or it, or (especially) the state’s mendacious and misogynistic governor, Greg Abbott.

The bill, of course, is blatantly and no doubt intentionally unconstitutional.  Curmie can’t believe that even Abbott and his cronies are stupid enough to think this monstrosity would actually pass muster in the courts, even the politicized remnant of a once ethical deliberative body that is now SCOTUS.  But that’s the point: winning isn’t the goal.  Playing to the base and having ongoing battles to fight are what bring in the campaign contributions.

But this essay is not about a provision by which those who act on the basis of a lower-court ruling declaring this law unconstitutional can still be charged if that decision is subsequently overturned.  (Curmie is no lawyer, but he does know ex post facto when he sees it.)  Nor is this about a law so sloppily written that it’s not clear if the Uber driver who takes a woman to Planned Parenthood could be charged even if said driver had no knowledge of the woman’s intentions (news flash: PP offers countless services that have nothing to do with abortion).  

It’s not about the bullshit “fetal heartbeat” language when the cut-off date happens long before there’s anything in an embryo that even resembles the specialization of heart muscles.  It’s not even about Abbott’s disingenuous argument that a woman would still have six weeks to decide to get an abortion (it’s maybe as much as a fortnight).

No, this essay is about something that has been little discussed elsewhere, a tactic that would make the KGB blush.  Apart from the constitutional issues involved, there is the apparent desire to turn every Texan (and even non-Texans!) into a nark.  This legislation incentivizes, to the tune of $10,000 a pop, neighbor turning against neighbor, inevitably sowing distrust and even paranoia.  Curmie, being a theatre geek, thinks of Bertolt Brecht’s one-act, The Informer, in which the mother and father of a young boy in the Hitler Youth fret at his absence.  Has he been telling the authorities of his parents’ criticism of the Nazi regime?  He returns home, having apparently only stopped to buy some chocolate… or did he?

Gentle Reader, you are free to blame whichever political party you don’t belong to for the widening schism in American politics: it’s Barack Obama’s fault or Mitch McConnell’s fault, Donald Trump’s fault or Nancy Pelosi’s fault.  (Hint: all of the above.)  But surely you must agree that this new tactic, if ever truly employed, would not only destroy the possibility of civil political discourse, but would bring the entire society to its knees.

Of course, stupid and unethical behavior begets stupid and unethical behavior.  Curmie’s Facebook page has been littered with more than a few memes and political screeds encouraging attempts to crash the system by overloading it with junk: everything from fake names and addresses to Shrek porn.  This isn’t the answer, and “they did it first” smacks too much of a standoff between primary school siblings.

Curmie is certain the pseudo-Christian hacks that comprise the Texas GOP are pretty proud of themselves for their attempted end run around not merely good sense, ethical behavior, a concern for the viability of the state’s government, and… oh yeah… the Constitution.  But as any football fan knows, a good free safety will make any offense attempting an end run wish they hadn’t.  “Free safety”… has a nice ring to it.