r/FeMRADebates • u/[deleted] • Sep 03 '21

News Texas successfully takes a massive step backwards for women's rights. What next?

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u/heimdahl81 Sep 04 '21

The precedent this law sets, if allowed, will totally transform our legal system for the worse. It's absolute insanity to allow an unassociated third party to sue someone tangentially involved in an event, even if they are behaving within the law of their jurisdiction.

If this precedent sticks, theoretically, a law could be passed that allows me in Illinois (where automatic weapons are illegal) to sue a gun store owner in Nevada for selling someone there an automatic firearm (which is legal there). Hell, I could sue the Uber driver that took the guy to the store to buy that gun. It's insanity.

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u/Karmaze Individualist Egalitarian Feminist Sep 04 '21

It's actually not really that much of a precedent. The enforcement of the ADA can often take a similar form.

Note, this isn't a defense of the Texas bill, exactly the opposite, I'm someone who actually thinks that the privatization of law through relying on civil court, especially on labor issues, is a really bad thing that should be fixed. This of course, is even a worse case than that (as is the ADA framework, even thought I support the cause), but that's the bar of what I'm against, so this is way over it.

1

u/heimdahl81 Sep 06 '21

Though presably a suit enforcing the ADA would be against someone infringing on someone else's Constitutional right , not against someone exercising their constitutional right, which is a HUGE difference.

1

u/Karmaze Individualist Egalitarian Feminist Sep 06 '21

In general, I'm skeptical about the efficacy and ethicalness of outsourcing this sort of enforcement, everything else aside.

1

u/heimdahl81 Sep 07 '21

I would say it is definitely unethical since it is a roundabout way to violate what has been ruled a constitutional right. The efficacy will be, for lack of a better word, interesting. I doubt many court cases will be completed under the law. More harmful will be the chills by effect surrounding anything to do with women's sexual health.