Starting September 1st, the state of Texas is offering a $10,000 bounty to any private citizen willing to sue another person who, in some way, helped make an abortion possible. The potential list of targets for such lawsuits is endless: from a pregnant person’s doctor and nurses, a therapist or pastor who offered moral support, a partner who helped pay for the procedure, a friend (even an Uber driver) who drove the patient to the clinic. Under the new law — which a group of doctors, clergy and clinic owners sued to block Tuesday — any or all of them could be taken to court by a stranger with no connection to the patient whatsoever and forced to pay a minimum of $10,000 each, plus legal fees, for “aiding or abetting” an abortion.
The law, which would apply to abortions that took place as early as two weeks after a missed period, or six weeks gestation, before many people even realize they are pregnant, is a bold escalation in anti-abortion activists’ war on reproductive rights. Since 2018, activists around the country have stepped up efforts to pass increasingly draconian restrictions on abortion, in the hopes that one of the laws will be considered by a Supreme Court majority sympathetic to their cause, who will in turn weaken — or strike down entirely — current federal protections for abortion. (The Supreme Court has previously ruled that states cannot restrict abortion before viability, or the point at which a fetus might survive outside the womb, typically between 24 and 28 weeks.)
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/texas-abortion-law-10000-bounty-1193591/