Texas is Encouraging People to Rat Out Women For Having Abortions

The southern state has become the first in decades to ban abortions from six weeks.

Stark Raving
An Injustice!
Published in
3 min readSep 1, 2021

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Photo by freestocks on Unsplash

Even as Texas Republicans decry mask mandates as being a violation of bodily autonomy, they are poised to pass a law preventing women from getting abortions past six weeks. They are using the language forged by decades of feminist activists to defend policies that endanger the entire population. Meanwhile, they are casually stripping women of their rights. Bodily autonomy is for everyone except women, it seems.

“Sue thy neighbor”

The SB8 law doesn’t criminalize abortions so much as it encourages people to bombard abortion providers with lawsuits. It allows any individual to sue those that help women seeking abortions for a minimum of $10 000. It was signed by Governor Greg Abbott in May.

Health service providers describe it as the US’ strictest legislation against terminating unwanted pregnancies, effectively creating a bounty hunting scheme that allows members of the public to target abortion seekers and providers. One website even encourages people to rat out individuals anonymously.

More than 20 abortion providers sued to overturn the law, but on Friday night, the 5th US Circuit…

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