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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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
Oof! Relevant song
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
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?
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.
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
But remember that Republicans will NEVER use these Laws to Jail Women!
