Hacker News Reader

Comment by paxys | Hacker News Reader

Considering that having a complication during pregnancy could now mean either jail time or death, I don’t know why any well off professional with options would choose to continue to live in Texas.

View on HN

Care to explain?

OP is referring to having to have an abortion in extenuating medical circumstances.

> The Texas Supreme Court on Friday night put on hold a judge’s ruling that approved an abortion for a pregnant woman whose fetus has a fatal diagnosis, throwing into limbo an unprecedented challenge to one of the most restrictive bans in the U.S.

> Cox learned she was pregnant for a third time in August and was told weeks later that her baby was at a high risk for a condition known as trisomy 18, which has a very high likelihood of miscarriage or stillbirth and low survival rates, according to her lawsuit.

> Furthermore, doctors have told Cox that if the baby’s heartbeat were to stop, inducing labor would carry a risk of a uterine rupture because of her two prior cesareans sections, and that another C-section at full term would would endanger her ability to carry another child.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/texas-supreme-court-pa...

Imagine electing to live in a dystopia like Texas where you can detect situations like this but aren’t allowed to treat them.

Considering that having a complication during pregnancy could now mean either jail time or death, I don’t know why any well off professional with options would choose to continue to live in Texas.

or they can take a 1 hour flight on southwest for like 50 bucks.

And then return home to a state where much of the populace, and the government consider them to be actual murderers.

Also, depending on the county they live in, anyone who helps them leave the state to have the medically required abortion may be breaking the law. Would this include the reservation agent at the airline? Sounds like it would.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/24/us/texas-abortion-travel-...

The eventual court cases over whether going to another state to do something legal is in fact illegal in your current state will be sad and interesting.

I’m going to go on a limb and say that a fetus will be counted under interstate commerce jurisdiction of the US Constitution so there will be a federal law level decision on whether abortion is illegal or not if one doesn’t exist already. Because then I’d imagine that supremacy clause means that states actually do not have the right to restrict procedures like abortions either.

In the Wickard v Filburn case the court ruled that a guy growing food on his own land to feed to animals on his own land was participating in interstate commerce. So it wouldn't be the first stretch of the term.

Likely unconstitutional for a number of reasons: - the constitution guarantees freedom of movement within the states. - the dormant commerce clause prohibits states from passing legislation that improperly burdens or discriminates against interstate commerce - states cannot pass laws with extraterritorial jurisdiction. The constitution establishes a federal system in which states have sovereignty within their own borders but cannot exert authority in other states.

But "states rights" are now a thing, somehow. Our Supreme Court has now shown a heavy political leaning, and the ability to discard precedent.

If I was a women, who according to my doctor, needed a medical abortion to save my life, what good is a multi-year appeal going to do me?

Innocent mothers will die from these laws, and future infertility will be caused.

If only somebody could have seen this coming.

Roe was nakedly political. Even liberals hardly defend it as an exercise in actual Constitutional law. It also remains an aberration in the developed world: the EU Court of Human Rights has repeatedly declined to recognize a general “right” to abortion that overrides the power of elected legislatures to regulate it.

The Supreme Court that showed a “heavy political leaning” was the one that decided Roe in the first place, not the one that overturned it, returning the issue to the public to decide, as is true in every country in the EU.

It's sad that you're getting downvoted when you're objectively right. Roe was the poster child for judicial activism where the justices literally invented a constitutional right out of thin air in order to justify their decision.

Sure, just have an ectopic pregnancy at 30,000 feet instead

"Emergency healthcare is just a flight to a neighboring state away, and you may be prosecuted when you get back" isn’t as much of a sell as you think it is.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com