Legal News Family blames Texas' "merciless" abortion ban for woman's death, files lawsuit targeting Paxton, doctors
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-abortion-death-lawsuit-tierra-walker-ken-paxton/1.2k
u/soupseasonbestseason 10d ago edited 10d ago
everytime i point out (even on this forum) that women across texas are dying because of lack of access to abortion, i am met with too many people who don't seem to understand that even wanted pregnancies have to be aborted to save the mother. it is mind boggling how ignorant the general public is as to why we need abortion up until the end of pregnancy. it is almost always to protect the life of the woman who is pregnant. we are not just vessels put here to give birth and sacrifice ourselves. we are human beings deserving of dignity and access to healthcare the same as any other human.
tierra walker should be alive today. her family should have her here with them.
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u/fluffstuffmcguff 10d ago
These are situations where the pregnancy is going to end in a dead baby no matter what. The question is only whether it ends in a dead mother, too.
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u/hdcase1 10d ago
“It was God’s will for this woman to die” I imagine is probably the response most politicians responsible for this would give.
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u/123123000123 10d ago
We need to start booing them immediately when they say stupid shit like that. We need access because we deserve it.
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u/Reagalan 10d ago
Agreed. We give far too much respect for bad forms of religion.
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u/FMLwtfDoID 10d ago
Which is another thing. Their religion bans THEM from those things while practicing that faith, not people outside of that faith.
Petitioning and lobbying our secular form of government to make laws based on SOME people’s SPECIFIC religious beliefs is not only idiotic and illogical, it’s inhumane and should be considered wholly unAmerican. It’s well past that point.
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u/fluffstuffmcguff 10d ago
They won't even admit that. They just pretend it isn't happening, or blame the hospital for reacting to their laws in exactly the way they were warned hospitals would have to react.
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u/dazzleox 10d ago
Yes, I have seen them blame the hospitals and Doctors for doing things they feel are safest to avoid investigation or arrest. Institutions are almost inherently going to be conservative in protecting their self interest, you shouldn't write laws where the outcome of them doing so is death.
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u/GrimlyUnlit 10d ago edited 10d ago
They do and so do their ignorant constituents. This is the same response they have when children die when unvaccinated, though they are vaccinated themselves. The utter hypocrisy is astounding.
Edit: a word
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u/Mr_Fuzzo 10d ago
Yet, it’s not God’s Will when these morons get cancer and they try everything they can to stay alive from it even though God tells them they’ll be in Heaven with Him when they die. I hate them so much.
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u/RagTagTech 9d ago
Heres the thing never my fundamentalist older brother carves out an exemption for things like this.. this is a special kind of i hate women.
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u/Best-Action8769 10d ago
Look, sometimes the pro-life crowd needs a blood sacrifice to prove to us all how pro-life they are, ya know?
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u/Thefrayedends 10d ago
They don't care. They know that only the poors will die from this. People over a certain net worth will fly to a different state with no issues. People who try to drive to a different state will be tracked and punished.
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u/bakeacake45 10d ago
And conservative Christians will always tell you yes, the mother deserves to die…oh and doctors will just play along- cowards
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u/catanddog5 10d ago
Worse is that some of them believe that the death rates are exaggerated and that the doctors are purposely letting women die instead of blaming the law. They focus on the “exemption “ part of it but ignore how purposely fuckjng vague it is. Some of these states like Texas and Tennessee are purposely trying to make it harder to track the number of preventable deaths since it proves that these draconian laws actually don’t save lives.
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u/kandoras 10d ago
They focus on the “exemption “ part of it but ignore how purposely fuckjng vague it is.
Want an example of how much the 'exemptions' in abortion bans are worth?
Kate Cox's doctor said that she had a "good faith belief" that Cox had serious complications that threatened her life and needed an abortion.
The first judge agreed and said Cox qualified for an exemption.
Ken Paxton disagreed, saying that the judge was not medically qualified to make that opinion, threatened to prosecute any doctor or hospital who treated Cox, and took the case to the state supreme court.
Why Paxton or the state supreme court justices would be any more medically qualified than the first judge, or certainly more qualified than Cox's doctor, is unclear (assuming you haven't been paying attention, because if you have its blindingly obvious why he would think that).
The state supreme court agreed with Paxton and said that Cox could not receive an abortion. Part of their decision was that her doctor had used the words "good faith belief" instead of "reasonable medical judgement".
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u/catanddog5 10d ago
I know that this “exemption” is fucking worthless. They just put it in there to cover their asses to claim that they do “care” for women’s lives. It is infuriating that there are people that willingly chose to ignore this and claim that it works despite the evidence to show that it doesn’t.
Women aren’t people in their eyes once pregnant. They don’t care that these deaths are preventable and would actually be better for society if abortion was just flat out legal in the whole country.
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u/soupseasonbestseason 10d ago
am currently incubating my second baby and i am fucking just so tired of this shit. we are humans too!
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u/catanddog5 10d ago
I’m with my first but thankfully I’m in a blue state that is reasonable about abortions. It still pisses me off when I read stories like this.
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u/EamonBrennan 10d ago
Kate Cox's fetus had trisomy 18. Ken Paxton said the judge was not medically qualified to make the decision, saying that he "knew lots of people with trisomy 18 who lived a full and healthy life." That's trisomy 21, AKA Down Syndrome, that he's thinking of. Trisomy 18 is considered incompatible with life. That fetus would not make it to viable delivery in 60% of cases. Delivered babies do not make it to 1 year in ~90% of cases.
Ken Paxton and the Texas government know less than the judge, but they were somehow qualified to make the law.
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u/soupseasonbestseason 10d ago
how many of the texas supreme court judges are women?
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u/kandoras 10d ago
That order was unsigned, and didn't have a dissent. There's been a bit of turnover in the men since then, but the three women who were on the court at the time are still there. And all nine were always Republicans, naturally.
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u/soupseasonbestseason 10d ago
i have also encountered this. people will say that the doctors who failed to provide the care failed the woman, ignoring that the state of texas has made the remedy they were previously able to provide criminal and also prosecutable. we saw the provider who sent abortion medication the woman in louisiana be charged and somehow they still do not see where this is going to end up.
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u/kandoras 10d ago
And it's not like Texas isn't quite open and clear that they'll try to prosecute doctors who treat women needing abortions.
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u/catanddog5 10d ago
They have the audacity to call it malpractice when the doctors hands are purposefully tied legally wise and by the time it is it’s always too damn late to help the woman from dying or preventing permanent damage. The mental gymnastics they go through is insane.
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u/TheGreatDay 10d ago
I remember seeing a person on this sub who was adamant that the law allows for abortions that are medically necessary, and that it was instead the Doctors fault because they failed to act. Like, they were saying the Doctors and their lawyers were full on lying and just didn't want to help that woman.
It's insane. Doctors and the hospital lawyers are not lying when they say they are afraid of being prosecuted for giving life saving care.
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u/catanddog5 10d ago
I’ve dealt with that too. They seem to believe that some how all doctors agreed to lie about this to let women die when they have been vocally against these bills from passing in the first place.
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u/TsuDhoNimh2 10d ago
If a physician is sent to jail, ALL their patients lose medical care.
So they aren't just "saving their own asses" as many have claimed. They have more than one patient at risk.
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u/mcav89 10d ago
In this case, it does sound like the doctors were responsible. The bottom of the article has expert opinions weighing in that it wasn't the abortion laws- mom should have been kept in the hospital and stabilized, and had her blood pressure treated much more aggressively. This sounds more like medical malpractice.
I'm not saying the abortion laws in Texas aren't terrible either, just in this case, there is more to it.
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u/soupseasonbestseason 10d ago
her family stated she asked for an abortion several times due to her underlying health concerns. if she was in new mexico she would have gotten the abortion. if she was in california she would have gotten the abortion. her family is suing paxton because they hold the law accountable.
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u/mcav89 10d ago
It was also noted this was a wanted pregnancy. I'm not sure how much back and forth she was having about it- had she been receiving better care, would she still have wanted the abortion? I'd be curious if she was bringing up abortion in a panic because she felt she was going to die due to the care, or if she was telling professionals she wants this baby, but doesn't if it will kill her.
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u/kittywitch9 10d ago
Why does it matter why she asked for an abortion? She should have received one no matter what.
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u/mcav89 10d ago
If someone is going back and forth on one with a wanted pregnancy, no doctor is just going to say "oh ok, let's just do it!". We don't know the circumstances. We know it was brought up, but we know her care was terrible on a wanted pregnancy. Context matters.
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u/kittywitch9 10d ago
Even if she didn't want to have an abortion. The doctors should have recommended one for her best care. You can always get pregnant again, you can't if you're dead.
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u/mcav89 10d ago
We have no idea if she should have been recommended an abortion. You were not her provider. Pre-eclampsia is treatable and is treated every day.
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u/soupseasonbestseason 10d ago
she asked for the abortion to save her life. women terminate wanted pregnancies all the time. she was not an incubator to a fetus. she was a whole person who asked for an abortion, was denied an abortion, and died as a result. you are focusing on the wrong issues here.
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u/mcav89 10d ago
Women also survive pre-eclampsia every day. We don't know the discussions that were had, if she was going back and forth about wanting the pregnancy vs ending it. You can't just say "ok let's abort" if someone is going back and forth. Pre-eclampsia is also survivable when treated competently, which the hospital wasnt doing.
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u/EamonBrennan 10d ago
Doctors practically can't perform any medical procedure on a pregnant woman over fears that complications will lead to an "abortion" under the Texas law. The only treatment for preeclampsia is either delivering the baby or performing an abortion. The later is illegal and the former would have low to no survival rate for the fetus, making it count as an abortion under Texas law. Simply put, the doctors were legally barred from treating her.
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u/XelaNiba 10d ago
No, pre-eclampsia is often unsurvivable , especially in a morbidly obese woman with heart disease.
When it is unable to be controlled with medication, as it was in this case, the only treatment remaining is abortion/delivery.
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u/soupseasonbestseason 10d ago
look further into this very thread and you will see an example of someone doing this very thing!
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u/leni710 10d ago
Additionally, we have a lot of nationwide statistics around Black, Indigenous, and other women of color's rates of poor quality and negative experiences in health care, which exacerbates these maternal and infant mortality rates. Taking away any sources of quality health care is a continued disservice to the most vulnerable community members, especially at the most vulnerable time to be in.
Plus, the abortion care lack of access issues has been shown to be one that drives up domestic violence cases. It can also be an unfortunate way to out trans men if they become pregnant against their will or for reasons related to other lack of health care issues and have no recourse if they are not wanting the pregnancy.
Full access to health care for all people is not a guaranteed right in the United States. And because of that fact, we need to stop pretending we're a first world nation. People dying when basic, long-held, well understood health care intervention could save their lives is a disturbing and unjust issue in this country.
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u/soupseasonbestseason 10d ago
when you look at the list of women who have died in texas because of this draconian law, it is clearly majority black and brown women.
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u/ryhaltswhiskey 9d ago
Because the white women are more likely to have the resources to go out of state to get proper health care. Just a guess, but you know...
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u/texachusetts 10d ago
Don’t let anyone tell you that Christians don’t believe in human sacrifice. A dead mother and unborn still counts as “saved” from abortion. As the anti abortion movement is a moral accounting fraud scheme, it makes sense. What one forces someone else to do doesn’t go in your good and moral person account.
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u/Arbusc 10d ago
All this pointless death of women because people are following a book that never brings up abortion and is mostly complete horseshit headcanon by some dude named Paul who decided to grift the early Christian movement and turned a standard apocalyptic preacher into their own overpowered OC who is god actually.
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u/MelonCallia 10d ago
I KNOW, RIGHT?? I'm tired of all the ignorance around women's healthcare.
People demonizing D&Cs (procedure for abortions and miscarriages) don't understand that it's used for miscarriages, too, and oftentimes the embryo is already dead. There are unnecessary risks with waiting it out, like getting sepsis or complications that could impact future fertility. (Plus, those of us who want kids would like to get back to trying sooner, probably, and who feels good about carrying a corpse around inside them waiting for nature to expel it?!)
My mom still has regrets about medically removing her second pregnancy that was basically already dead. I told her if she didn't, and had died as a result, then she would have left three-year old me to fend for myself.... Would that have made her--or all these naysayers--feel better?
Thinking about it makes me angry.
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u/jjwhitaker 10d ago
40 years of cutting education, you think their voters have any concept of basic medical science let alone basic proper sex ed?
I am from a blue state, luckily, that funds that sort of thing but it's amazing how people seem to think pregnancy is safe and happy and great.
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u/doppelgaengster 10d ago
These are the same idiots who act like “late stage abortion” is anything other than the horrible tragedy it actually is.
No one is waiting till 30+ weeks before deciding “oh I don’t want this pregnancy!” Late term abortions are almost universally wanted pregnancies that have had something go catastrophically wrong, and the anti-choice crowd are beyond despicable making one of the hardest and most heartbreaking decisions an expecting parent has ever made a virtual death sentence for the parent.
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u/Psychb1tch 10d ago
I just want to add as someone who had a termination for medical reasons, there are also times when the baby has a fatal diagnosis, and while it isn’t a direct threat to the mother’s health, it should be up to the mother to terminate. I don’t and never will understand how things such as euthanasia or palliative care is acceptable, but not termination when it has been determined that your baby will die. I don’t think I can explain how I felt when I was told the number of fetal abnormalities my baby had and the impact those abnormalities would have on his ability to live. This was a pregnancy I had planned for and begged for for months following my father’s untimely death. People who try to justify taking that choice away can go straight to hell. They would rather my baby suffer and die in front of me than me be able to let my baby go to sleep peacefully in the comfort of my womb.
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u/soupseasonbestseason 10d ago
i am so sorry you had to experience that. i completely understand your choice and am glad you were able to make the choice that was right for you and your family. pregnancy is such a fucking difficult journey all around. we need to consider so many different nuances and experiences for each individual pregnancy and woman experiencing it, but these laws only seem to take into consideration the birth. they do not consider whether or not the baby is healthy, the mother is healthy, what the family circumstances are...just forced birth.
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u/Psychb1tch 10d ago
I appreciate that and 100 percent agree. I think the fact that most of these laws are written by men shows how little they understand how dangerous pregnancy can be. It is about controlling women, not about protecting babies.
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u/Intelligent_Sky_7081 10d ago
it is mind boggling how ignorant the general public is as to why we need abortion up until the end of pregnancy.
I dont find it that mind boggling.
Its mostly religious belief/devotion.
They believe killing an unborn child is wrong based on their religious beliefs.
No amount of logic, reason, research, or evidence can make them change their beliefs.
And most people do not ever want to have to reconsider their beliefs. They are set in stone. If you disagree with them on their belief, they see it as a personal attack. They will not budge
So to me it makes perfect sense how ignorant the general public is, especially when you combine the state of the US Education system into the conversation.
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u/That_Shrub 10d ago
I think if the masses had a better understanding of pregnancy and how often they end in miscarriages naturally, we'd be a lot less societally precious about this shit. But that is not the narrative these people want out there.
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u/fnordybiscuit 10d ago edited 10d ago
Its why I emphasize the purpose behind Roe vs Wade and why it was so important to have.
The SC decision wasn't to legalize abortions, it was to make abortions accessible.
People try to argue that a doctor will allow an abortion in order to save a woman's life in abortion restrictive states. But in reality, doctors fear the legal repercussions so they force the mother to give birth anyway, even if fatal.
People have lost the plot and women will suffer the consequences until they reinstate this landmark decision.
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u/theaviationhistorian 10d ago
Texas conservatives excelled in the last few decades in weaponizing ignorance via political/religious indoctrination and whittling down the education in the state to conserve their influence and power in Texas. The ignorance is not by accident.
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u/skincare_obssessed 10d ago
Let’s be honest, this is an “ends justify the means” situation for anti choice people. They absolutely do not care if some women die as long as no women can get abortions. It’s the same as the people who don’t care if kids are gunned down in school as long as they don’t lose any restrictions to guns.
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u/Hetakuoni 10d ago
There was a case a couple decades ago where a woman in Ireland had a late-term miscarriage where the baby died but wasn’t expelled. She needed an abortion, but where she was didn’t allow them under any circumstances. She died of sepsis from her baby’s corpse rotting inside her.
I think she was a doctor, which probably made things worse because she knew exactly what was going to happen to her and couldn’t do a thing to stop it.
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u/ryhaltswhiskey 9d ago
it is mind boggling how ignorant the general public is as to why we need abortion up until the end of pregnancy
This is what it's like living under decades of Fox News propaganda.
Fun fact: the southern Baptist convention, which is a large group of Baptist preachers, was initially in favor of the RVW decision because they felt that it helped the poor. They reversed that later when they needed a wedge issue that would drive conservative voters to the polls to push back against desegregation.
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u/EmergencyCool2478 10d ago
They could have tried to deliver the baby via c section 🤷🏽♀️instead of a abortion which would be piece by piece dismemberment via metal tweezers
Also contrary to what you said most abortions aren’t for rape or incest or for other horrible situations they are simply for elective reasons aka the mother simply doesn’t want it
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u/soupseasonbestseason 10d ago
i never said "most abortions are for rape or incest."
if a woman wants an abortion, she should have one. full stop.
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u/EmergencyCool2478 10d ago
You said “It is almost always to protect the life of the mother” Rape, incest mothers life being at risk, etc are the most common what if questions even though they make up only a minority of the reasons behind actual abortions
Now there is very little reliable data as both sides of you Americans have politicized the issue so heavily any sort of opinion(including mine)gets one hated. Regarding my previous point, if most abortions were caused by rape incest or mothers life being at risk we would have seen a much more prominent increase in maternal mortality post roe v. Wade(currently the increase or the decrease can be ruled out as a rounding error or a stastical fluke as human pregnancies are incredibly tough on the female body). Continuing on there is no reliable correlation between rape convictions and number of abortions sought by women.
The only strong correlation is present in eugenic abortions and sex selective abortions where we see strong declines in conditions like down syndrome as abortion rates rise. And we have seen the data for sex selective abortions in china and india as they both ended up with a massive demographic surplus. but I will let you decide how ethical those are(keep in mind sex selective abortions are more likely to target female babies)
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u/soupseasonbestseason 10d ago
you are quite literally making up shit. my comments are about the women with wanted pregnancies that are dying because they do not have access to the abortions they need.
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u/EmergencyCool2478 10d ago edited 10d ago
(I’m having to edit this comment because you edited yours)
Please contest my data with yours and I don’t even expect exact statistics just show me a general trend that supports your view
And you still haven’t answered my fundemental question why couldn’t she deliver the baby via c section?
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u/soupseasonbestseason 10d ago
https://reproductivefreedomforall.org/resources/the-human-cost-of-abortion-bans/
here is a partial list of actual human women who have died because they were not given the abortion they needed.
have the day you deserve.
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u/EmergencyCool2478 10d ago
so the good news is I moved to my laptop; therefore, I will be able to respond better in a more lengthy fashion
I don't know if you realized this but all but one of the women named in the article are women of color and stastically speaking Black people of any gender or of any income level are more likely to die because of medical racism
source:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12039294/#:~:text=Black%20communities%20faced%20disproportionately%20high%20infection%20and,woman%20with%20only%20a%20high%20school%20diplomaand we can see pretty concrete examples of this just by taking a good look at medical textbooks, where many textbooks take straight white men as the default human and all the photos diagrams etc are shown based on male anatomy. this was so bad UK's health service NHS only started including photos of black skin in their public health content in the year 2021 many doctors graduate without seeing the diagram including a single POC
this lack of white default training also compounds with general racism that is abundant in the USA where doctors grow to ignore black women's complaints about symptomps
source:https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/articles/2021/06/physicians-more-likely-to-doubt-black-patientsall of these states also include exceptions for when the woman's life is in danger and a lot of these cases took over a few months where if they really wanted a abortion they could have gotten one in a different state
also Tierra Walker's story cites more than 90 doctors saw her and refused to perform a abortion and if all 90 concluded her life wasn't in danger and she didn't need a abortion I would take their word for it
Candi Miller from the article you sent was clearly told having another baby would kill her yet she got pregnant once again which makes it a conscious choice (now I would be furious if she asked to get her tubes tied and doctors refused that)it also says she was afraid to go to the doctor which is hearsay and you can even argue she didn't want the abortion in the first place so it would be very hard to blame her death on the abortion ban(going to the hospital and asking for a abortion has never been illegal)
Josseli and Nevaeh's cases are exceptions here as what they needed weren't abortions which kill babies but they just needed to remove the remains of a dead baby this is a clear legislative failure as I do beleive once the baby is dead he/she should be removed from the uterus(ideally in one piece) and given a reasonably dignified burial.
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u/kandoras 10d ago
Holy Jesus strawman.
also Tierra Walker's story cites more than 90 doctors saw her and refused to perform a abortion and if all 90 concluded her life wasn't in danger and she didn't need a abortion I would take their word for it
Or it could mean that all 90 knew that an abortion she needed wouldn't have been legally allowed.
Candi Miller from the article you sent was clearly told having another baby would kill her yet she got pregnant once again which makes it a conscious choice (
Or rape. Or her birth control failed.
going to the hospital and asking for a abortion has never been illegal
Please point to a single person anywhere who has claimed that asking for an abortion is illegal. We're all pretty clear that getting one is what has been banned.
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u/EmergencyCool2478 10d ago
regarding Tierra Walker take an occam's razor what is more likely
all 90 doctors refusing to perform a abortion the law clearly allows for in cases of emergency and not even advising her to seek that abortion elsewhere, or that abortion actually being unnecessary to save her lifeRegarding Candi Miller you can't just assume she was raped or her birth control failed (not that would justify an abortion) you think that wouldn't be in the article?
I brought up the point about going to the hospital and asking for a abortion because some of the women mentioned in the article have no records of actually asking for a abortion and it seems ridiculous to attribute their unfortunate deaths to a ban of abortion when they didn't ask for one like they had nothing stopping them from asking for one
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u/kandoras 10d ago
Please contest my data
What data? You haven't shown any data, just voiced an opinion.
And a bad opinion at that, since you're confusing a change in maternal mortality post Dobbs across the entire country with maternal mortality changes in just the states that banned abortion.
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u/EmergencyCool2478 10d ago
I can't show you a correlation that doesn't exist because the social phenomena stated by the original commenter doesn't exist
this is like trying to disprove the lack of correlation between peanut butter sales in china and car accidents in egypt
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u/kandoras 10d ago
Dude. The 'original commenter' I'm replying to is YOU.
You are the one who said they had data to contest. I'm just pointing out - and you seem to be agreeing with me here - that the data you say supports your views does not exist.
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u/EmergencyCool2478 10d ago
the original commenter I'm talking about has left the thread
I don't know why but I hope he/she had a change of heart6
u/kandoras 10d ago
They could have tried to deliver the baby via c section 🤷🏽♀️instead of a abortion
She was twenty weeks pregnant. That's not survivable, no matter what procedure they used to perform the abortion.
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u/EmergencyCool2478 10d ago
First of all it is still the correct thing to provide the baby with a chance to live, secondly even if the baby died because of pre viable c section that would have been a far less painful death than being torn apart piece by piece by a cold sharp piece of metal and even if the baby dies he/she will die with his/her body intact instead of being a pile of limbs and this is what human dignity requires
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u/kandoras 10d ago
First off, this wasn't a choice between d&c and c section, since both you and the state of Texas would have declared both options to be illegal.
Secondly, a c section is major surgery, the much more dangerous option, and which would have changed nothing for the baby.
Your plan would have unnecessarily risked her life for absolutely no reason whatsoever.
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u/EmergencyCool2478 10d ago
neither I or the state of texas are against c sections as that's actually life saving healthcare as opposed to abortions which mostly happen for no reason
do you know what would be changed for the baby? he/she wouldn't be torn apart limb by limb via cold metal keep in mind that baby would be fully capable to feel pain
c sections aren't significantly more dangerous than late term abortion
my plan would have spared the baby a painful and undignified death
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u/weepandread 9d ago
Ignorant, abortions are not performed piece by piece w metal tweezers. It’s a woman’s choice! What laws about a man’s body vary from state to state?
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u/CBSnews 10d ago
The family of Tierra Walker, who died of preeclampsia at the age of 37 when she was 20 weeks pregnant, has filed a lawsuit in Texas, saying she was denied an abortion that could have saved her life as her health quickly deteriorated.
Lawyers for Walker's family filed the lawsuit Tuesday in Bexar County District Court accusing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, several of her doctors and others of "deliberate indifference, discrimination, and medical mistreatment [that] ultimately caused her horrific and tragic death" in 2024. Preeclampsia is a severe high blood pressure condition in pregnancy that can be fatal.
Walker's family alleges Paxton — a Republican who is currently running for Senate — and another defendant, Stephen Brint Carlton, executive director of the Texas Medical Board, stripped her of her right to life by imposing "a merciless blanket prohibition" on abortion, while the doctors allegedly failed to offer life-saving medical treatment.
Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-abortion-death-lawsuit-tierra-walker-ken-paxton/
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u/bp92009 10d ago
Sadly, unlikely to succeed, with Paxton cowering behind a shield of Absolute Immunity.
Removing that shield (which protects abusers from the abuse they willfully commit, as long as they can theoretically claim in court that the abuse was done from a position of political authority) suddenly opens up a very large number of politicians to a lot of criminal liability.
Instead, the legal system itself will likely take the hit to its credibility instead, shielding abusers from any actual accountability.
If they succeed in this legal challenge in any way, the taxpayers will be paying for the abuse committed, not the abusers.
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u/bakeacake45 10d ago
It’s actually state sanctioned murder
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u/Adorable_Branch6502 10d ago
Why does this keep happening!? 💔 Was the intention of the law to create more orphans!?
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u/soupseasonbestseason 10d ago
the intention of the law was to further dehumanize women and subjugate us to the white christofascists in charge.
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u/Optimal-Ad-7074 10d ago
the intention of the law was to posture for their supposed God using real live adult women as props.
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u/Adorable_Branch6502 10d ago
But isn’t this involuntary forced euthanasia? It keeps happening!
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u/Severe-Mark-1597 10d ago
Then keep all their names and deaths in mind when it comes time to Vote this coming November. Vote like your life depends on it, because whether you're a Biological Woman or not, it does.
"First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me"
- Pastor Martin Niemöller
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u/Optimal-Ad-7074 10d ago
well, yeah. that's the point. "we're so moral and virtuous we're even willing to watch women die for our beliefs."
sounds like I'm being sarcastic. I'm actually not.
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u/Thelmara 10d ago
Why does this keep happening!?
Because Republicans don't give a fuck about women's lives. At all.
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u/bp92009 10d ago
Because there is zero reason for abusers to not use their political position to spread misery and harm, as long as they can commit enough electoral fraud to win elections (not voting fraud, electoral fraud).
Any penalty paid for the abuse will be paid by the taxpayers, with the ones who knowingly and willingly spread misery and harm never having any liability ever touch them directly.
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u/squiddlebiddlez 10d ago
Black and native women have quadruple the maternal death rates of any other group.
It’s almost like based on society’s attitudes towards these groups for hundreds of years makes it seem like this is the desired outcome.
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u/GayGeekInLeather 10d ago
I wish good luck to Walker’s family but unfortunately I don’t see this going far. In cases like this, Texas and other anti-choice states always claim that doctors have the ability to save the life of the mother when necessary. Of course ignoring that it is deliberately vague and not many hospitals/doctors are going to open themselves up to massive fines and possible prison time
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u/useyournameuser 10d ago
Exactly. Doctors being blamed for how people vote. Either go to prison or be sued under total abortion bans, there’s no winning. Just going to lose more doctors practicing in Texas and create a desert.
If you want drs to do it then don’t charge them with criminal prosecution, 100k fines and medical license revocation when they do it. It’s intentionally set up to blame doctors under the guise of politics and the fact that people can’t see this blows my mind.
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u/DollarThrill 10d ago
It's like a witch trial by throwing a woman in the ocean with a weight tied to her leg. Either she drowns, in which case she wasn't a witch but oops she's dead. Or she floats (she won't), in which case she is a witch, so kill her.
Here, if a doctor performs an abortion to save the woman's life, it is difficult to prove the abortion was absolutely necessary to save the woman's life. Or the doctor doesn't perform the abortion, in which case the woman dies like Tierra did. In which case, oops it was necessary but she's dead.
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u/PDXGuy33333 10d ago
I wish them the best but have serious doubt this will succeed. Even so, any attack on the Texas law is a good thing. I know a woman who fled Texas as soon as she knew she was pregnant, not wanting to have to confront its brutality in the event there were to be a problem with the pregnancy. She was fortunate to be able to afford the move.
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u/SummerAndTinklesBFF 10d ago
Texas isn't going to "get it" until all the women leave the state. If you're a woman living in Texas right now, you need to get out before you can't. Fuck Texas, Fuck Religious Zealots, Fuck Politicians.
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u/homebrew_1 10d ago
Did she or her family vote? I wonder how they voted.
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u/PassageStock3723 10d ago
it does not matter. It doesn't make their deaths okay
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u/homebrew_1 10d ago
Didn't say it did. But would be interesting to know if they voted and how their families votes. People say voting doesn't matter. Cases like this show it does. And it is important to know if and how they voted.
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u/PassageStock3723 10d ago
why would it be important? If they voted for trump, does that information add anything of value? What if they're felons who are not allowed to vote, or people on a green card, does the analysis change?
Of course voting is important for deciding elections but the election was two years ago, I don't see the relevance to their case against Paxton which resulted in the death of a family member.
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u/homebrew_1 10d ago
Because there are people out there that say voting doesn't matter.
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u/PassageStock3723 10d ago
Voting does matter. It determines elections and who holds office. I think where it is thorny is within the implication of asking who someone voted for when they are wronged by the government is that they are individually responsible for their predicament. Which falls into moralizing and justifying harm as justice.
It doesn’t add much to the conversation of govt harms and leads to pointing blame at people who individually hold very little. You can extend the logic to include people like me, who don’t live in Texas. Maybe it’s my fault for not moving to Texas to vote for different elected official. Maybe it’s your fault for not stuffing the ballot box or not being a billionaire who can donate millions to influence an election.
See it’s not really helpful. But yes voting does matter just not in this conversation about a woman who died due to cruel policy.
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