A Texas woman who was jailed and charged with murder after self-managing an abortion in 2022 can move forward with her lawsuit against the local sheriff and prosecutors over the case that drew national outrage before the charges were quickly dropped, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Drew B. Tipton denied a motion by prosecutors and the sheriff to dismiss the lawsuit during a hearing in the border city of McAllen. Lizelle Gonzalez, who spent two nights in jail on the murder charges and is seeking $1 million in damages in the lawsuit, did not attend the hearing.
Texas has one of the nation’s most restrictive abortion bans and outlaws the procedure with limited exceptions. Under Texas law, women seeking an abortion are exempt from criminal charges, however.
Starr County District Attorney Gocha Ramirez and other defendants have argued their positions provide them immunity from civil lawsuits.
Rick Navarro, an attorney for the defense, argued that it was “at worst a negligence case” during the hearing. Ramirez has previously told The Associated Press that he “made a mistake” in bringing charges.
If you’re in Texas, vote.
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Super helpful! Thank you!
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Don’t forget to check it again around the time that voter registration for your state closes. Florida loves to purge its registry in late September.
Texans can check their voter registration status, register to vote, check polling hours and locations, and find other information about the election. At this website: https://www.votetexas.gov/mobile/index.htm
Polls open October 21-November 1, with one final day to cast your vote on November 5. Polls are required to be open at least 9 hours the first week and at least 12 hours the second week of voting. Some polling places may be open on the weekend. If you don’t want to wait in line, don’t wait until thw last day to cast your vote!
Texas wants women to be brood sows
Anti-abortion stances hurt minorities most. So, it’s surprising that Texas has one. The rate of teen mothers here is ridiculous though. Go out to a mall and you’ll find half a dozen within an hour.
Not surprising when you realize pro birthers leadership doesn’t care about race as much as ensuring that there’s a poor, unhealthy (mentality and physically), and uneducated population to exploit. Ya they are racist but their wealthy donors like Walmart only make money by employing “lower classes” and their customers are that as well. The moment people stop having children in this late capitalist dystopia the whole system falls apart.
Relevant Body Count
iirc the hospital tipped the police about the abortion
which does, in fact, make me more angry
How does that not violate HIPPA? Do you have a source; out of curiosity?
There’s some situations where say, a person may be hospitalized after a car-accident and also has prior warrants out for them (the police were already involved with the wreck and now know the ‘wanted’ person has gone to a certain hospital). So the police will leave paperwork in the patient’s chart, asking for a “courtesy call” when the patient is about to be discharged, so that they can than be arrested. But it’s technically not “mandatory” (oh, I was busy and forgot to call the detective!), but the system definitely makes it feel mandatory
But being tipped off about a patients’ medical condition‽ So that they can be arrested afterward for said medical condition‽ I’m sorry, but how the actual fuck does that fly in any logical realm?
If true: the hospital should be held accountable for violation of HIPPA, which is a federal law. Fuck their state laws, that’s not how it works
They are also under suit, for those reasons. Per the article
You’re right though, I only read the summary and then commented from there. Having now read the full article, it seems that it’s the “county” (that runs the hospital) listed in the lawsuit. Why not the hospital themselves? Or is that how the law works (as in, who is liable) when dealing with federal laws that were broken?
Maybe it’s a county-run hospital? I didn’t know the answer to this one, I didn’t do any further follow up
Yeah, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act does not allow cops to access your medical records at all, unless they have a warrant. Even if they have a warrant, they can’t add or remove anything. No one at the hospital is going to tip off police; we want people to seek care without being afraid of the consequences. If the cops were involved in a car accident, they’ll have details from the vehicle registration. They’ll follow up when the patient is out of the hospital.
TLDR the cops can’t fuck with your medical records, and if the hospital released records illegally whoever did it is fukd.
thats a lot of questions im not qualified to answer, unfortunately
I didnt get any further than blind outrage at the situation and fantasies about fist-fighting the people at fault
D.A. and sheriff have argued their positions provide them immumity from civil lawsuits.
No! No, no, nonono, NO! FUCK YOU. “I’m just doing my job” is not a “get out of jail free” card, and certainly doesn’t excuse you from defending your actions. You use the courts to ruin other people’s lives when you deem it appropriate? You’d better damn well believe your conduct while doing so is subject to the same processes- criminal and civil. Forget the sheer arrogance of thinking differently -
if you’d think about it for half a second, you supposed justice system experts -
the whole damn thing doesn’t work otherwise! Who is going to bother listening to you, holier than thou police officers, when you say the rules don’t apply to you!? Are you somehow fucking stumped why people just mysteriously don’t like cops? THIS KIND OF BULLSHIT IS A BIG REASON WHY. When you plainly act like the expectactions we hold for each other don’t apply to you, you sound like you think you’re above the law. You’re not royalty, you’re not nobility; you are citizens, just like us.
these were choices y’all made. choices have consequences. own your shit. we DO NOT pay you to be mindless law enforcing robots- exercise better judgement next time. you want respect for the difficult job you do? rationally defend your actions OR as you’ve somewhat tried to do, apologize, and then show you’ve learned from your mistakes. this “I can’t deal with/the system can’t deal with the idea that people make bad choices so lets just act like everyone is infallable” is ruining, just RUINING any hope we have of continuing to be a functioning society pulls hair out in frustration
Even if they were royalty, the guillotine makes us all equal.
I would argue once the guillotine becomes a factor we don’t become equal… Some of us come up short.
I will see myself out.
But remember that Republicans will NEVER use these Laws to Jail Women!
hospital staff violated patient privacy rights when they reported the abortion
Shouldn’t there be a HIPAA violation here? And Federal law trumps State law
There’s a HIPAA exception for actions that cause a person’s death. And, wrong as they may be, some of those people actually believe the fetus was a person.
Then they shouldn’t be doctors. There is a medical definition for life, and an unborn fetus does not meet that requirement. We can argue all day about personal morals, and whether or not that is a right or wrong assessment, but the fact is that is the current assessment of the medical community and when you’re a doctor you follow those rules. Personal beliefs do not come into it. If they do not like it they can quit.
I think you ended up in the wrong subthread. Whether they quit or not, stay doctors or not, has no bearing on whether their actions are HIPAA violations.
Women should be able to leave the state to get away from any bullshit charges that fascists make up.
Part of the problem with fascism is that its advocates don’t respect anyone’s rights.
its advocates don’t respect anyone’s rights.
You forgot about that unborn child rights. “Its avocates don’t respect anyone’s right”, give me a break.
Boy, these conservatives are really something, aren’t they? They’re all in favor of the unborn. They will do anything for the unborn. But once you’re born, you’re on your own. Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from conception to nine months. After that, they don’t want to know about you. They don’t want to hear from you. No nothing. No neonatal care, no day care, no head start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothing. If you’re preborn, you’re fine; if you’re preschool, you’re fucked.
~ George Carlin
Not a bad piece of propaganda and yeah its true. Once your born, you are on your own. Stop whinning since at the end of the day, you got to live.
You forgot about that unborn child rights.
Stop whinning
Lolz.
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So you’re also a fascist because you believe that your personal opinions should be forced on everyone else. You think that an unborn fetus is a child, everyone else disagrees with you, who’s right? Of course it’s you isn’t it, because it’s your opinion. And you’re always right.
So when you were in your mothers womb, imagine if your mom was like “I don’t want this” and you would not have been born and got to live. Think about that, actually think about it.
But what do I know, I guess I am just a “facist” who thinks he is always right. Who would of thought that being against killing the unborn was radicial.
So when you were in your mothers womb, imagine if your mom was like “I don’t want this” and you would not have been born and got to live.
Then I wouldn’t have given half a fuck because I would not have been born and gotten to live.
I wouldn’t have cared would I, because I would never have found out about it. If you think this is some kind of gotcha then you’ve seriously missing the plot.
Who would of thought that being against killing the unborn was radicial.
You really can’t see outside of your own bubble can you? There are a lot of people who fundamentally disagree that it constitutes murder, they do not believe someone that has not yet been born, and frankly doesn’t even have a nervous system yet, is a human. You’re operating on the faulty assumption that your belief is universal and so people think murder is fine, but really your several steps back from being able to even begin to comprehend their argument.
Trying to explain abortions to a fundamentalist is like trying to explain science to a fundamentalist, your whole world view is just so completely skewed that you can’t even comprehend what I’m saying.
I can comprehend what your saying, I am just ignoring your points since there simply wrong. Besides your the one stuck in your own bubble of selfishness.
So you’re ignoring me because it’s easier to do that than to actually think. I didn’t really expect a genuine conversation with a fundamentalist, you guys are nuts.
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Yes, murderers should be able to leave and get away from their crimes.
Talk about a shithole!!
judge rules
Doesn’t sound like it.
The judge in this case is allowing the woman affected by the original murder charge to sue the prosecution for $1 million in damages for jailing her for 2 days. It’s a garbage ambiguous title meant to farm outrage when it could instead be instilling hope in progressives wanting to undo the harm that took place.
I had to read it twice before it made sense. It really is ambiguously worded.
They should put the total damages awarded as a result of lawsuits against incumbents along with the portion of those damages paid by every eligible voter by way of their taxes on the ballot next to the incumbent’s name. If people knew that hundreds or thousands of their tax dollars had gone to pay damages as a result of lawsuits they might be less likely to vote these assholes back into office.
Really? Just a million?
Let the big back fire begin!
By the time this settles Amazon is going to be selling abortion kits and training books with Catholic theme decals…and then Jesus inserts the scapula, now pray a little bit and rotate 360 degrees. And the republicans deserve it. Plus freeway billboards with ads to pornhub. Gay, pornhub. Imagine a guy’s face and his mouth pointing to the left of the sign with all of it pixelated from the mouth to the edge in varying levels of pink and brown.
You’ve gone off your meds again I see
Interesting
Hey I’m just gonna be here watching it all unfold. Republicans are such idiots for trying to find freedoms by removing freedoms from others.
