Texas Abortion Law - Are Utilities, Licensing Bodies and Local Government subject to liability under the law Under the new Texas Abortion Law would the following be liable for a $10,000 fine Utility Companies such as Power, Phone Broadband providing power to the clinics Local Government for providing infrastructure to the clinics Suppliers of medical equipment The law states that civil action may be brought against anyone who (2) knowingly engages in conduct that aids or abets the performance or inducement of an abortion, including paying for or reimbursing the costs of an abortion through insurance or otherwise, if the abortion is performed or induced in violation of privacy this subchapter, regardless of whether the person knew or should have known that the abortion would be performed or induced in violation of this subchapter; Can providing supplies, infrastructure or power be considered &quot;aiding or abetting&quot;?
No Those things do not constitute &quot;aiding or abetting&quot;, nor does the Texas law define them as such. The Actual law Sec. 171.208 of the law known as Texas SB 8 reads in relevant part: (a) Any person, other than an officer or employee of a state or local governmental entity in this state, may bring a civil action against any person who: (a) (1) performs or induces an abortion in violation of this chapter; (a) (2) knowingly engages in conduct that aids or abets the performance or inducement of an abortion, including paying for or reimbursing the costs of an abortion through insurance or otherwise, if the abortion is performed or induced in violation of this chapter, regardless of whether the person knew or should have known that the abortion would be performed or induced in violation of this chapter; or (a) (3) intends to engage in the conduct described by Subdivision (1) or (2). Interpretation If the actions described in the question are covered by this law, it could only be if the fall under the category of: conduct that aids or abets the performance or inducement of an abortion which means that the definition of &quot;aids or abets&quot; is crucial. There is no definition given of this phrase in SB 8 except what is provided in 171.208(a)(2). Therefore &quot;aids or abets&quot; must be taken to have its ordinary legal or general meaning, modified only by the provision that &quot;whether the person knew or should have known&quot; is not relevant to this law. The LII page on &quot;Aid and Abet&quot;&quot; reads: To assist someone in committing or encourage someone to commit a crime. Generally, an aider and abettor is criminally liable to the same extent as the principal. Also called &quot;aid or abet&quot; and &quot;counsel and procure.&quot; The entry on &quot;Aid and Abet&quot; in the Legal Dictionary section of The Free Dictionary reads: To assist another in the commission of a crime by words or conduct. The person who aids and abets participates in the commission of a crime by performing some Overt Act or by giving advice or encouragement. He or she must share the criminal intent of the person who actually commits the crime, but it is not necessary for the aider and abettor to be physically present at the scene of the crime. An aider and abettor is a party to a crime and may be criminally liable as a principal, an Accessory before the fact, or an accessory after the fact. The definition from the Macmillan Dictionary reads: to help someone to commit a crime The definition given by USLegal reads: To aid and abet means to assist another person in the commission of a crime by words or conduct actively, knowingly, and intentionally. In a criminal offense, a person who aids and abets in a crime, participates in the commission of the crime by performing some overt act or by giving advice or encouragement. The person should be sharing the criminal intent of the person who actually commits the crime. However, it is not necessary for the aider and abettor to be physically present at the scene of the crime, or take part in the actual criminal offense ... The definition given by The Phrase Finder reads: To help and encourage, usually in the commission of a crime or anti-social act. All of these definitions include the idea of one who helps, encourages, or assists in the commission of a criminal or wrongful act. Most of them include that this help must be given knowing that the act is criminal. I do not think that one could rationally or legally say that the provision of utility services, general infrastructure, or medical equipment constitutes &quot;aiding or abetting&quot; the conduct prohibited by Sec. 171.208. Such services or support are not provided specifically to help with the acts prohibited. If providing utility services constitute &quot;aiding or abetting&quot; then utility companies could be charged as accessories to any and every crime that does not take place in a dark, unheated, unplumbed building, or in the outdoors. Insider trading, for example often takes place in the criminal's own office, but no one charges the utility company that provides power to such an office as accomplice to the crime. I think this question shows a misunderstanding of what &quot;aid or abet&quot; means. it does not refer to any service or equipment that a criminal may find helpful, but only to acts specifically designed to help in the criminal act, and usually to acts committed knowing that they are aiding a crime. Nothing in SB 8 changes this. There may be problems with SB 8, but the possibility of charging utility companies, or providers of medical equipment as accessories is not one of them.
Although abortion is legal in the US, not everyone is allowed to perform an abortion. In Washington, the law allows a physician to terminate a pregnancy, and recognizes a woman's right to choose to have an abortion. An abortion performed by anyone else is not legal, and performing an illegal abortion is a class C felony. There are "plan B" pills which are legal in the US and levonorgestrel is available without a prescription, but the mifepristone and misoprostol regime is not available without a doctor's orders. In this scenario, the partner will have performed an illegal abortion, and is guilty of a controlled substances crime. In some states, there is a separate crime of fetal homicide. In Washington, this is covered under 1st degree manslaughter, a class A felony, if one "intentionally and unlawfully kills an unborn quick child by inflicting any injury upon the mother of such child". "Any injury" does not require "great violence" or "striking". It is also the class B felony of poisoning which includes slipping in a harmful substance with intent to harm another person, as well as assault.
From a legal perspective, I think the ruling is reductio ad absurdum correct. California voters passed Proposition 65. Consequently, CA Health and Safety Code 25249.6 says "No person in the course of doing business shall knowingly and intentionally expose any individual to a chemical known to the state to cause cancer or reproductive toxicity without first giving clear and reasonable warning to such individual, except as provided in Section 25249.10". Section 25249.8 mandates a list, and defines "known to the state" A chemical is known to the state to cause cancer or reproductive toxicity within the meaning of this chapter if in the opinion of the state’s qualified experts it has been clearly shown through scientifically valid testing according to generally accepted principles to cause cancer or reproductive toxicity, or if a body considered to be authoritative by such experts has formally identified it as causing cancer or reproductive toxicity, or if an agency of the state or federal government has formally required it to be labeled or identified as causing cancer or reproductive toxicity. Acrylamide is so listed, and has been for 18 years, reason code listed as "AB-IARC, AB-US EPA". The law does not say that "the benefits may outweigh the risks", nor does the law say anything about usual doses. There is an "escape clause", if one (the defendant) can prove that there is no effect (25249.8(b)): An exposure for which the person responsible can show that the exposure poses no significant risk assuming lifetime exposure at the level in question for substances known to the state to cause cancer, and that the exposure will have no observable effect assuming exposure at one thousand (1000) times the level in question for substances known to the state to cause reproductive toxicity, based on evidence and standards of comparable scientific validity to the evidence and standards which form the scientific basis for the listing of such chemical pursuant to subdivision (a) of Section 25249.8. In any action brought to enforce Section 25249.6, the burden of showing that an exposure meets the criteria of this subdivision shall be on the defendant. The answer on Skeptics does not address the EPA finding (and the science underlying it). At this point we can only conjecture about the defense's scientific argument (the ruling is still in the works, pending feedback from parties), but the judge said "While plaintiff offered evidence that consumption of coffee increases the risk of harm to the fetus, to infants, to children and to adults, defendants' medical and epidemiology experts testified that they had no opinion on causation" and that the coffee makers hadn't presented the proper grounds at trial to prevail. Insofar as human subjects testing of suspected carcinogens is illegal, any argument that "but this only shows that it causes cancer in rats" is legally empty: rats are a suitable proxy for humans. This is a state report addressing a potential carcinogen, 4-Methylimidazole. The report notes that to have a No Significant Risk Level finding, the substance must have less than a "daily intake level posing a 10^-5 lifetime risk of cancer". A further requirement is that "risk analysis shall be based on the most sensitive study deemed to be of sufficient quality" (whatever that is). This study mentions a previous study which was rejected because "these studies do not meet the criteria specified in Section 25703(a) because the experiments were not designed to adequately control for and examine the potential carcinogenicity of 4-MEI". Basically, Spiegelhalter's argument is too meta, and doesn't constitute a proof that acrylamide poses no risk of cancer. If the defendants commissioned an independent scientific study to overcome earlier carcinogen findings, perhaps the study failed on technical grounds. The bar that has to be cleared is very high. The EPA regulation says that the maximum contaminant level goal for acrylamide is zero. That is the carcinogen-science basis for specific allowable levels in water supplies.
To the extent Constitutionally permitted or as further limited by the state’s own law Constitutionality, a suit may be brought (or a prosecution launched) when the state has personal jurisdiction over the defendant. … a state court may only exert personal jurisdiction over an individual or entity with &quot;sufficient minimal contacts&quot; with the forum state such that the particular suit &quot;does not offend 'traditional notions of fair play and justice.'&quot; What constitutes sufficient &quot;minimum contacts&quot; has been delineated in numerous cases which followed the International Shoe decision. For example, in Hanson v. Denckla, the Court proclaimed the &quot;unilateral activity of those who claim some relationship with a nonresident cannot satisfy the requirement of contact with the forum State. The application of that rule will vary with the nature and quality of the defendant's activity, but it is essential in each case that there be some act by which the defendant purposefully avails itself of the privilege of conducting activities within the forum State, thus invoking the benefits and protection of its laws.&quot; For the abortion bill, an organisation that provides funding to Texas residents probably has “minimum contacts”, an out-of-state doctor who treats all-comers probably doesn’t. For employment laws: if the employee is based and work takes place in the state, yes. There is a separate question of which state's law applies which is independent of which state's courts can hear the case. A California court can decide that it can hear a case according to Texas law for example although, in practice, if the California court felt that all of the issues were Texan, they would probably decide they lacked jurisdiction.
They both can be found liable, but not by using the but-for test. Suppose that person A and person B each independently negligently discharge firearms and that each on its own would be sufficient to kill person C. Is it true that, "but for the actions of A, C would still be alive?" No. Is it true that, "but for the actions of B, C would still be alive?" No. Using the but-for test would not be able to assign liability to either A or B. "But for" is not an obvious phrasing for non-native English speakers. It's the same as asking, "If it were not for the actions of A, would C still be alive?". However, courts and juries are not limited to using the but-for test for causation. See Corey v Havener, 182 Mass. 250 (1902): It makes no difference that [...] it is impossible to determine what portion of the injury was caused by each. If each contributed to the injury, that is enough to bind both.
Is this realistic? Yes. The dramatic performance plays out in the same way that it would in the U.S. Court system. The actual killing of the wife would be 'legal', so can he be charged for murder for something that has been done legally, only because they can prove is intent to kill her before that? Especially since he has already been acquitted of that fact. Mostly, this is an issue of causation and not double jeopardy. From a double jeopardy perspective, the crime of murder is not complete until the person dies, and they have not be tried for murder, so this is a different crime that had not occurred until after the attempted murder trial was over. Causation Issues Even if the immediate cause of the wife's death is withdrawal of life support, the shooting could still be a legally sufficient cause of the wife's death. For example, suppose that you shoot someone and the hospital can't give the victim a blood transfusion because the victim has blood type O- (universal donor) which can only receive blood from other people with blood type O-, and the hospital, due to negligence on the part of a hospital administrator, has run out out of type O- blood. The fact that the victim would not have died if the hospital has not negligently failed to have type O- blood on hand does not provide a defense to murder on the part of the person who shot her. While terminating life support is "legal" it also constitutes a non-judicial finding with legal effect on the part of the person authorizing it and the physicians signing off on the decision, the further medical care would have been futile and that the person whose life support was terminated was already dead in key material respects, even though they would not be dead for purposes of a murder charge until life support is terminated. When death is a natural and foreseeable result of action that causes physical harm, the death is caused by the act that causes the physical harm. Something else that causes death would have to be a "superseding cause" and not just an additional cause of death. Thus, the fact that life support was terminated legally does not mean that she cannot be a murder victim. Indeed, many murder victims are people who are on life support for some period of time and then have that life support terminated because it is futile to continue medical care and the person is already "brain dead" or something equivalent to that. Collateral Estoppel Issues Double jeopardy does carry with it a related concept of "collateral estoppel" which provides that facts necessarily decided in one criminal case cannot be decided differently in a subsequent, related criminal case in some circumstances. But, collateral estoppel applies only when the facts in the prior criminal case were necessarily decided on the merits in the prior criminal case. Acquittal of criminal charged does not necessarily include a determination that someone was innocent of the charges. The fact that he was acquitted of attempted murder does not mean that the jury found that he didn't attempt or intend to murder her. In particular, a dismissal of criminal charges as a result of a technicality that excluded evidence related to an element of the crime for which there was an acquittal, is not a determination on the merits that a particular element of a crime was actually absent, so it would not be binding in the subsequent criminal case for murder. An acquittal does not mean that every element of the prior criminal charges was found not to be present. Collateral estoppel arising from the double jeopardy right, in contrast, might be a ground for dismissal of the murder case, if the man's primary (and perhaps only) defense to the attempted murder case had been that he had established the affirmative defense that someone else committed the murder, or that he had an alibi that made it impossible for him to have committed the murder. Then, the jury would have found on the merits that this defense, equally applicable to the murder case, had already been established.
Intent matters here, but yes. Alice could be considered guilty of either Second-Degree Murder or Manslaughter, though the latter is far more likely. Texas has no laws condoning assisted suicide that could absolve Alice. Second-degree murder requires the following: The defendant intentionally and knowingly caused the death of another person The defendant intended to cause serious bodily injury and committed an act that was clearly dangerous to human life and this act caused the death of an individual This is tenuous, but it could be argued this way if Alice intended to cause Bob's death. It certainly meets the second criteria: shooting oneself constitutes serious harm and giving a firearm to someone who has stated an intent to kill themself is reckless. It's more likely that Alice would be charged with manslaughter. The only definition is: A person commits an offense if he recklessly causes the death of an individual. As discussed above, giving someone who has announced an intent to kill themself a loaded gun is reckless. Alice's actions resulted in Bob's death.
Your understanding of the bill is correct. Legislation takes effect 90 days after sine die adjournment unless there is an emergency or enactment clause. If a relevant provision of the law is struck down as unconstitutional, any suit dependent on the provision would be dismissed. Residency is not relevant, what is relevant is being subject to Arkansas jurisdiction, meaning "being in Arkansas". A non-resident traveling to Arkansas could not have a forbidden procedure in Arkansas, and an Arkansas resident can have a procedure allowed elsewhere if they are elsewhere. A spouse would not be able to get an injunction if, for instance, the wife traveled to Washington state for the procedure, because Arkansas courts have no jurisdiction over Washington state. The law imposes a restriction on what physicians in Arkansas can do, and the woman receiving the abortion is not subject to liability.