Sounds great to me. If this is the way we’re going to operate on abortion then guns should be fair game for litigation. Avenge the deaths of those kids at Sandy Hook! It’s fucking Pro-Life all the way!
I thought she might be eager to maker serious progress but instead found her locked into a hidebound series of failed bumper stickers and ad hominem attacks
People who succeed use different and better strategies.
Get ready to be called everything but a Child of God for observing the obvious.
She’s not as smart as she thinks. She’s a one-note bully with a mailing list.
They can’t sue their victim, but they can sue anyone and everyone who helps their victim. Usually that’s going to be multiple people, each at at least $10K.
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This is probably too late to the party to get much attention, but ultimately it will be up to a jury to decide on liability, not a judge, even if the law gives strangers standing to sue for something that is none of their business. I’m sure they will choose judges and venues where juries will favor the plaintiffs. Yes, that sucks.
But I have a solution and one that Biden can implement quickly and loudly to forestall any attempt of a plaintiff to come forward. The plaintiff must establish that an abortion has, in fact, taken place. That is private medical information under HIPAA and unauthorized release of such private medical information is punishable by a $50K civil fine and possibly even criminal charges.
The only barrier to applying HIPAA confidentiality requirements on TX abortion bounty plaintiffs is to make them subject to HIPAA. The law is the law, but it includes so-called “business associates” of medical and insurance providers. (That designation includes ME, since I designed a system for a small business with HIPAA data encryption.) So all Biden has to do is issue a general executive order which defines “business associate” as anyone acting under the authority of a state (which is subject to HIPAA) who releases any private medical information for profit as having violated HIPAA and subject to full penalties under law.
And don’t come back at me with any objections over legal niceties. We are way beyond that now and the kind of lawmaking in TX and SCOTUS willful blindness has rendered moot any “but you can’t do that because” such as such legal argument. The whole point is to answer the incentive to sue under the TX law with a much larger disincentive not to do so. Justice should prosecute (civilly or criminally) the first plaintiff and they lawyer who files a lawsuit under the TX law as having violated HIPAA.
To reverse Biden’s executive order or any particular prosecution, SCOTUS would have to invalidate HIPAA in its entirety, or strike down the definition of business associate. Neither will go over well with the public. But Biden will score some easy points and the disincentive will work.
HIPAA material is expressly subject to disclosure under subpoena. That means you can make the doc testify at the trial too.
But by publicly accusing someone of breaking this law, you’re publicizing privileged information, prior to any discovery or subpoena.
I’ve been supporting this research for years through the Parsemus Foundation. There is a method, it works effectively, and is reversible. It is going through animal trials now.
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bounty
Dumb question here: do you have to pay federal taxes on state court winnings, say bounty obtained from the fathers of pregnant women?
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You pay taxes on lotto winnings so my first reaction was “Yes”. From this article, it seems like it:
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While I appreciate you legal opinion, the lawsuit itself has to allege (with at least some specificity) the who when and where of the supposed abortion, and they can’t issue a subpeona until filing the lawsuit. So even disclosing the supposed fact to one’s lawyer about a third party should constitute a HIPAA violation.
This is one of the “legal niceties” I was talking about. Immediately modify (by Biden executive order, if necessary) any agency guidance regarding based on “information and belief” (as it would probably be stated in the lawsuit) as being a HIPAA violation. Further, it shouldn’t matter than a state statute somehow empowers people to break federal law, even if they have to initiate a state lawsuit to issue an otherwise valid subpeona.
The point is to make the act of filing the lawsuit by a stranger or other third party that releases confidential medical information of a third party for profit a violation of HIPAA for anyone who does so. The penalties for doing so should chill both potential plaintiffs and their lawyers.
I’m also guessing that any subpeona for personal medical records can’t be a fishing expedition and that anything produced under that subpeona and the execution of the subpeona itself are subject to due process. The feds can get a federal judge to quash the state subpeona or the results thereof pending determination of whether the federal HIPAA violation has, in fact, occurred.
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Don’t give 'em any ideas…
You have no idea what you’re talking about. See also Tex. R. Civ. P. 202.
I just saw this suggestion this morning over at “Electoral-Vote.com” Looks like a winner to me for ALL the red states that don’t support reproductive health services for their residents - just let the local VA hospital do it On Federal Property with Federal Employees who are not Subject to State Laws
"Q: Could Joe Biden authorize the 15 military bases in Texas to perform abortions for the general public? I believe the bases are federal land, and the doctors working there are federal employees. And if the bases don’t provide enough coverage, VA hospitals could be enlisted. J.S., Austin, TX
A: We would suggest that VA hospitals first, with the military bases as the backup, would actually make more sense. In any case, this should be possible if Biden wants to flex his muscles a bit. It used to be the case that doctors in government employ were subject to the laws, professional requirements, etc. of the states in which they were practicing. However, in the waning days of the Trump administration, with an eye toward creating maximum flexibility in the face of the pandemic, the Department of Veterans Affairs announced a new rule that says that government-employed physicians need only abide by federal standards of care, and are not bound by “conflicting State law … that would unduly interfere with the fulfillment of a VA health care professional’s Federal duties.”
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I read that. And it is prescriptive not proscriptive. Could you explain how it PREVENTS an action?
Is that how this works? So every piece of US Government owned property isn’t subject to state laws? And when a Federal employee commits a state crime in that hospital, nothing can happen to them? They could rob/steal/beat/whatever and nothing would happen to them?
No.
I am fairly certain there is a Fed prohibition on using Fed dollars in any manner for abortion.
That doesn’t mean Biden could not permit a “fee for service” arrangement at the VA via Executive Order. I believe such an arrangement already exists for VA family members who are NOT military veterans today.
I think this could easily provide a “check” on the SCOTUS and Red State authority over reproductive rights AND give 51% of the population a good reason to never vote for another candidate for POTUS from the GOP, as that would endanger their right to agency of their own bodies.
WRT state crimes committed on Federal Property, I believe the jurisdiction is expressly Federal, NOT the state. Murders, for instance, on military bases are prosecuted under Federal Statute and / or the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
It doesn’t. The point of Rule 202 is that you can take a deposition to find out if you have a case you can file.