The Texas anti-abortion law, which deputizes citizens to act against anyone who even intends to help any woman get an abortion in the short window of time before the fetal heartbeat can be detected, a couple of weeks after the first missed period, is reminiscent of the old Fugitive Slave Act. You can hear an excellent legal discussion in the most recent episode of Dahlia Lithwick’s Amicus podcast. Here’s a bit about this deadly new law (for poor women in Texas), from that discussion:

…this does hark back to some very dark American history and dark American history that has been supported through the United States Supreme Court. So the fugitive slave acts provided for citizen participation in the establishment, the furthering the preservation of American slavery. It weaponized the citizenry, deputized citizens to surveil, to start to apprehend people who were in violation of US laws by escaping themselves out of slavery, out of an inhumane situation. And there were bounties that were provided for their success and surveilling and successfully apprehending, obtaining individuals who dared to exercise liberty, autonomy and freedom.

And when you think about this Texas law, there are certain analogs that eerily resemble that of the Fugitive Slave Act in that it provides for a right of action of private citizens. It provides for financial renumeration of those citizens who are able to successfully peg someone who has aided or abetted an individual in obtaining an Abortion.

And what this means with the law written in such broad terms that this could implicate the Uber driver, the Lyft driver, the bus driver, or the receptionist that works at an abortion clinic, virtually anybody who has been in the way of the path of a person exercising the constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy?

What’s interesting about the law, Dahlia, is that after Roe v. Wade, there was Planned Parenthood v. Casey. And what comes out of there is that there should be no obstacle placed in the path of a woman and terminating a pregnancy. And Texas has flipped that on its head, which instead you may sue anybody who aids and abets a person on the path of terminating a pregnancy. It is a very dangerous law and it is very dangerous and alarming what has happened at the Supreme Court.

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And, as you recall, there were some very religious Christians who truly believed that God and Jesus truly blessed the institution of slavery. These cocksure pieces of shit never change, since God tells them they are 100% correct, why would they change? Amy Coney Barrett and her pious ilk would be right at home with those righteous slavery defending motherfuckers.