Texas law aims to punish prosecutors who refuse to pursue abortion cases
After the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade last year, district attorneys from major counties in Texas vowed not to vigorously prosecute people under the state’s anti-abortion laws.
Now, Texas has a plan to punish them if they don’t fall in line.
On Friday, Texas will enact Senate Bill 20, a law that forbids prosecutors from adopting a “policy” of refusing to prosecute particular types of crimes, such as abortion cases. Under the new law, these policies constitute “official misconduct” and could lead to prosecutors being removed from office.
This kind of legislation flies in the face of prosecutors’ normal ability to choose whether and how to pursue cases, said Miriam Krinsky, executive director of Fair and Just Prosecution, an organization that works to support local prosecutors. Krinsky called the new law “scare tactics”.
“This is not about seeking to see enforcement of laws,” said Krinsky, a former federal prosecutor. “This is about trying to erode the rights of individuals to make choices around their own personal healthcare. And that is incredibly sad, because the collateral damage of that political agenda is the erosion of democratic principles.”
Laws like Senate Bill 20 are the latest volley in a long series of battles about the role of small government in regulating abortion. Before the supreme court overturned Roe and abolished national protections for abortion rights, opponents of the procedure had long argued that states should be allowed to write their own abortion laws. Now, however, some powerful anti-abortion groups like Susan B Anthony Pro-Life America are calling for federal abortion restrictions, such as a 15-week ban.
Texas is far from the only state where prosecutors have said that they will refuse to go after people for violating abortion bans. Within days of Roe’s overturning, 90 elected prosecutors released a statement – organized by Fair and Just Prosecution –publicly announcing that they would “refrain from prosecuting those who seek, provide, or support abortions”. (US abortion bans typically penalize individuals who provide abortions or help others get the procedure, rather than abortion patients.)
Of those 90 prosecutors, five are district attorneys from Texas, which currently outlaws almost all abortions. Three of those prosecutors’ offices did not immediately return a request for comment on the new Texas law or what it may mean for their pledge. One declined to comment.
Wesley Wittig, a spokesperson for the Fort Bend county district attorney, Brian Middleton, said that Middleton’s office reviews every case.
“We do not, and have not, had any policies that categorically refuse to consider a specific type of crime,” Wittig said in an email. Fort Bend county includes parts of the Houston metropolitan area.
The Nueces county district attorney, Mark Gonzalez, whose jurisdiction includes Corpus Christi, Texas, told Rolling Stone this week that he still believed no one should be prosecuted for making a personal decision like having an abortion. But, Gonzalez added: “We don’t have any actual policies in place that say: ‘We will not take this case or take case.’”
Republicans in at least three other states introduced legislation this year that would undermine prosecutors’ power to refuse to pursue abortion cases. But Democrats are also trying to curtail local officials’ ability to handle abortion cases: Earlier this summer, the Democratic Arizona governor, Katie Hobbs, signed an executive order stripping local prosecutors of their ability to charge abortion providers.