On Monday, a Texas-based doctor, Alan Braid, was sued by two former attorneys, Oscar Stilley and Felipe Gomez, for performing an abortion within the state in defiance of the Texas Law SB8. The two plaintiffs are attempting to “test” the constitutionality of the new abortion law, making Braid’s case the first to be lodged.
The anti-abortion law was passed on September 1 after the United States (US) Supreme Court refused to block it despite severe criticism. The law states that anyone can sue a person who “aids or abets” an abortion that takes place in Texas after six weeks of pregnancy for a minimum of $10,000 plus attorney fees.
Dr Braid publicly admitted that he performed an abortion on a woman who was pregnant for more than six weeks in defiance of the law. “I acted because I had a duty of care to this patient, as I do for all patients, and because she has a fundamental right to receive this care. I fully understood that there could be legal consequences. Still, I wanted to make sure that Texas didn’t get away with its bid to prevent this blatantly unconstitutional law from being tested,” the San Antonio doctor wrote in an opinion piece for The Washington Post.
Dr Braid mentioned that his journey as a doctor in San Antonio for the past 50 years influenced his decision. “I have daughters, granddaughters and nieces. I believe abortion is an essential part of health care. I have spent the past 50 years treating and helping patients. I can’t just sit back and watch us return to 1972,” he wrote.
Moreover, neither of the two plaintiffs confessed they were “anti-abortion.” Instead, they both said their motivation behind filing the lawsuits was that they “wanted to see what the court [Supreme Court] would do.”
Stilley, a disbarred lawyer from Arkansas and on home confinement serving the 12th year of a 15-year sentence for tax evasion and conspiracy, filed the lawsuit after reading Braid’s opinion piece. In a phone conversation with Reuters, Stilley said he feels Law SB8 violates women’s constitutional rights. “I think it’s a decision between her and her doctor,” he said.
“I don’t want doctors out there nervous and sitting there and quaking in their boots and saying: I can’t do this because if this thing works out, then I’m going to be bankrupt,” Stilley told the Associated Press. “I want a judgment on it. I want to get this established—is this a valid enactment, or is this garbage that needs to be thrown out?” he said in a candid interview with Daily Beast.
Gomez, the other plaintiff, shares a similar motivation. An openly pro-choice former attorney, Gomez mentioned the law’s unconstitutionality in his lawsuit and demanded that the Supreme Court terminate the law.
He said his lawsuit is “a way to hold the Republicans who run Texas accountable, adding that their lax response to public health during the COVID-19 pandemic conflicts with their crackdown on abortion rights.” “If Republicans are going to say nobody can tell you to get a shot, they shouldn’t tell women what to do with their bodies either. I think they should be consistent,” Gomez told the National Public Radio. Gomez added that he wasn’t “aware he could claim up to $10,000 in damages if he won his lawsuit.” If he receives the money, Gomez said, he would likely “donate it to an abortion-rights group or to the patients of the doctor he sued.”
Meanwhile, both sides of the abortion discourse in the US have reacted to the developments. Supporting Dr Braid’s move, Carol Sanger, a law professor at Columbia University, said, “Being sued puts him in a position that he will be able to defend the action against him by saying the law is unconstitutional.”
On the other hand, Texas Right to Life, the state’s largest anti-abortion group, criticised Dr Braid’s opinion and the attorney’s lawsuits. “Neither of these lawsuits are valid attempts to save innocent human lives...We believe Braid published his op-ed intending to attract imprudent lawsuits, but none came from the Pro-Life movement,” the group stated.
Since it came into effect, the law has received enormous backlash and criticism from the global community. The law violates women’s rights over their bodies and goes against the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade judgement, which constitutionalised women’s access to abortion services.
US President Joe Biden has been taking ‘whole-of-government’ measures to repeal the law. On September 9, the Biden administration sued Texas in a bid to block the law. On Monday, Biden once again urged the Supreme Court to protect Roe v. Wade as Mississippi, another Republican-led state, attempts to replicate the law by banning abortion post 15 weeks.
Texas Doctor Sued for Providing Abortion by Plaintiffs ‘Testing’ New Law’s Legality
Dr Alan Braid, a doctor who performed an abortion in defiance of the Texas abortion ban, was sued on Monday by two former attorneys who are attempting to test the constitutionality of the new law.
September 21, 2021
Texan women protest Law SB8 imposing a near-total ban on abortion. SOURCE: ERIC GAY/ASSOCIATED PRESS