Texas lawsuit explained: How a man is suing his ex-wife’s friends for murder over her abortion. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/03/texas-lawsuit-suing-friends-explained.html

#GOPMisogyny
#ChristianNationalism
#FundamentalistZealotry
#Freedom4MeNotThee

"On the surface, this argument makes some sense. Upon closer scrutiny, it falls apart. There is a hole at its center: Texas law expressly states that an individual does not commit a criminal act when she terminates her own pregnancy. The state’s abortion bans, homicide statute, and assault statute all declare that self-managed abortion is not a criminal act and cannot be punished as one. So even if Doe’s fetus “died,” for purposes of Texas law, its death was not “wrongful,” so no one can be held liable for abetting it. As Joanna Grossman, a visiting professor at Stanford Law School, told Slate: “If there’s no wrongful death, then there’s no wrongful death liability.”

“Jonathan Mitchell knows he’s not going to win this case,” Grossman said. “It’s all smoke and mirrors.” (It is a perverse irony of the litigation that the defendants earnestly tried to give Doe accurate legal advice while Mitchell is deliberately misusing the law to terrorize them for doing just that.) What, then, is the purpose of this lawsuit? It seems the suit has several extralegal goals, all of which are rooted in a brazenly misogynistic desire to let men manipulate the legal system to control women’s bodies and keep them trapped in dangerous relationships.

It seems the suit has several extralegal goals, all of which are rooted in a brazenly misogynistic desire to let men manipulate the legal system to control women’s bodies and keep them trapped in dangerous relationships.
One aim is certainly to set a precedent that helps isolate pregnant people through terror and surveillance. The fear of winding up ensnared in a multimillion-dollar lawsuit that ruins the lives of one’s closest friends is certainly a good motivator. Mitchell, Cain, and the Thomas More lawyers want all pregnant Texans to understand that they are being watched —in this case, by a vindictive ex—and will be reported to the state if they seek to terminate a pregnancy. They are never safe from men who will wield litigation as a tool to punish women who attempt to escape a manipulative partner. This is spousal abuse via lawsuit. Indeed, in 1992, the Supreme Court refused to allow for mandatory spousal notification precisely because it could be used as a cudgel to abuse and torment women. SCOTUS reversed that decision when it overruled Roe, though, and this complaint is the inevitable result of that reversal: It attempts to assert that every husband should now be granted the right to terrorize pregnant people and bankrupt their friends.
...
That, of course, was the goal of S.B. 8, which empowered random strangers to sue anyone who dared to “aid or abet” a clinical abortion. Now Mitchell is broadening his dragnet to include medication abortions, placing a bounty on the head of anyone who helps a pregnant person obtain these pills.
...
Second, the suit serves as a window. It’s crucial to see where the anti-abortion movement is heading next now that Roe v. Wade has fallen. Their quest to end abortion has been undercut by the ubiquity of abortion pills, which are very easy to procure online and to ship across state and international lines. While some lawyers fight to ban these drugs nationwide, others, like Mitchell, seek to ruin the lives of anyone who facilitates their delivery to a pregnant person or offers advice on how to procure them. In other words, S.B. 8 was only the beginning of the anti-abortion vigilantism. The lawyers hellbent on obliterating all access to reproductive care will not rest until anyone who so much as texts a friend about abortion must fear that they could be defamed as a murderer."

I can't tell you how many arguments Hubs and I have had about this state. He loves to vacation at SC beaches. We did that all our lives. Now I refuse to even enter the state, it's so disgustingly sexist and racist. Hubs says that's what they want. I say I won't spend my money there. The shock of Hillary-hate in 2016 at tourism merch stores was nightmarish. Now it's full blown Gilead.
#AbortionRights #GOPmisogyny
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/south-carolina-death-penalty-abortion-1234695566/

@1finekitty

This is F-u-u-u-k ing ridiculous!!!!

#GOPMISOGYNY #WomensRightsAreHumanRights

This is what counts as a hero in the right-wing sphere!

Right-wing influencers and media figures defend Andrew Tate after he is charged with human trafficking and rape | Media Matters for America https://www.mediamatters.org/rumble/right-wing-influencers-and-media-figures-defend-andrew-tate-after-he-charged-human

#RightWingInsecurity
#GOPMisogyny
#GOPAntiFeminism

"Conservative pundits baselessly claim that Tate’s arrest was “completely, absolutely, totally made up” so that he would “be silenced”

Right-wing media figures have defended bigoted social media influencer Andrew Tate after Romanian officials arrested him on December 29 and charged him with human trafficking, rape, and forming an organized criminal group.

Tate has styled himself as a self-help guru who, according to The Guardian, is “capable of radicalizing men and boys to commit harm offline.” His rise to stardom in the right-wing media ecosystem has been in part fueled by his online course “Hustlers University,” which Insider compared to “a multi-level marketing scheme.” As Tate’s fan base grew, clips of his virulently bigoted rhetoric rapidly spread across social media, particularly on TikTok. In these clips, Tate expressed his deeply misogynist beliefs, including claiming that the “easiest way to judge the value of a female” is based on how many sexual partners she has had. He has also asserted that a relationship works only when the woman “obeys like she’s supposed to” and it is OK for men to cheat on women, but not for women to cheat on men because “women show their love through sexual loyalty.”

In August 2022, Meta banned Tate from its platforms under its “dangerous individuals and organizations” policy after he posted videos in which he described, in graphic detail, how he would assault a woman if she accused him of cheating. TikTok, Twitter, and YouTube have also banned Tate from their platforms. In response to Tate’s deplatforming, right-wing outlets cast him as a free speech martyr and the conservative video sharing platform Rumble recruited him to his site.

After Tate’s arrest, several right-wing figures defended him and baselessly claimed that he was arrested because he is “effective and he’s going against the system”
Following Tate’s arrest, some right-wing influencers openly expressed their continued support for him and defended his bigoted rhetoric. Many denied the allegations against him and even claimed that he was set up in an effort to silence him.

Nico Kenn De Balinthazy, a right-wing streamer and an associate of Tate’s who goes by the handle Sneako, posted a video to Rumble after Tate’s arrest. He began the video by seemingly asking his viewers to write “Free Top G in the chat. Free Andrew Tate. Free Andrew Tate.” (Tate refers to himself as “Top G.”) Balinthazy added, “He said this was going to happen and it happened.” Later on in the video he said that he has been to Tate’s house in Romania, and “I know them personally. Andrew and Tristan Tate are not human traffickers. It’s all a lie.” [Rumble, 12/29/22]
Right-wing influencer An0maly said, “I don’t think he’s doing what they’re saying he’s doing, I think they’re mad at him because he’s effective and he’s going against the system.” [Facebook, 12/30/22]
Students for Trump co-founder Ryan Fournier expressed disbelief after Tate’s arrest, tweeting, “Andrew Tate was arrested for ‘human trafficking.’ Really? After all of the BS we’ve seen this year, do you REALLY think this is true?” [Twitter, 12/29/22]
Infowars’ Alex Jones came to Tate’s defense on his show saying that the charges against Tate are “completely, absolutely, totally made up” and that “Tate is well known for being neurotic about not breaking the law, about being neurotic about knowing when they’re trying to set him up. And it’s well known that when people try to start fights with him and stuff, you know what Andrew Tate does? He walks away. And so, I know his M.O. he was not trafficking women and all this crap.” [Infowars, The Alex Jones Show, 12/30/22]..."