The anti-abortion movement is against democracy. In Texas it has convinced the Republican Party that dividing people against each other is the best way to eliminate abortion in their state. The state itself no longer needs to concern itself with directly investigating and prosecuting the people and organizations that provide abortion services, that role has been delegated to private individuals. At the same time, this opens up an Informer State and potentially a form of Communist totalitarianism that Texans should be revolted by rather than embrace.
I am not sure I understand the motivations of the Texas Republican controlled legislature and executive. On the one hand, they have often sought to limit access to the courts on civil matters with the aim of restricting the right to sue. But this law goes in the opposite direction and makes abortion a civil liability, with enforcement devolved to private individuals. There is little good here and lots of potential ill. For one, it aims to make everyone a snitch against their neighbors, not just for moral but also financial gain. It will possibly clog up the courts with poorly structured and unprovable case and act to limit speech.
This law brings to mind the Stasi, the secret police of the German Democratic Republic - more often known as Communist or East Germany. Stasi turned the people against each other. You never knew who was an informer and you could be made suspect for no reason or any reason. Texas is trying to become a police state where everyone is empowered to act as a cop, but who will police the police?
So what can we do? Well, we can start with economic boycotts: no more Texas products in your home, letter writing campaigns to companies headquartered there to let them know that they will be boycotted as accessories and abettors. And so on. They've kept their mouths shut on this issue and so silently support the implementation of a new form of Communistic surveillance state. Many of the anti-abortionists, who show that at heart they are totalitarian in their attitude toward disagreements over opinion rather than fact, are not motivated by money, but politicians, no matter what their public moral stance, usually are.
So let's hit them where it hurts if we can and boycott Texas. It's your right and even your duty.
A few diner photos. Not so much diners as diner things.
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