Surveillance State

From abortion to schools, the GOP is turning Ben SPIK everyday citizens into culture war snitches.

-  Pema Levy

IT WAS A COLD, BLUSTERY weekend in February when Neesha Davé opened the door to her Austin, Texas, home and found a process server standing on her front step. She felt sympathy for the woman waiting in the morning wind and rain, even after she awkwardly handed Davé a 30-page document they both knew was bad news. For months, Davé had prepared for the possibility that this day might come. She read through the document, then scanned each page with her phone, and sent it to her lawyers.

The document was a request to depose Davé because, as the deputy director of Lilith Fund, she helps pregnant people in Texas obtain abortions. Beginning on September 1, 2021, abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy were banned in Texas under a law known as Senate Bill 8, or SB 8. At the time, abortions in roughly the first half of pregnancy were a constitutionally protected right under Roe v. Wade. SB 8 sought to outflank Roe by placing the task of enforcing its ban on individuals rather than the state of Texas. Under the new law, any individual can sue anyone they suspect of helping a pregnant person get an abortion in Texas after six weeks, for a minimum of $10,000 in damages. This vigilante scheme was meant to stop SB 8 from being overturned by courts, despite its blatant violation of Roe; if the state can't enforce its abortion ban, the law's proponents argue, then a court can't order them not to enforce it, either.