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A lawsuit was filed Monday by Oscar Stilley, a former Arkansas tax attorney who is serving a house sentence for a federal conviction for tax offenses.
He filed a complaint against the doctor, Dr Alan Braid, in Bexar County.
In a phone interview with CNN, Stilley said he was an opponent of the law that bans most abortions in the state, but wanted to pave the way for a judge to rule on its constitutionality.
“I am a supporter of the Constitution and I am opposed to the law,” Stilley said.
A second lawsuit has also been filed against Braid by Felipe N. Gomez, an Illinois resident who describes himself as a “Pro Choice Plaintiff” in the lawsuit.
The lawsuits open a new front in the legal war over the six-week abortion ban, which went into effect on September 1.
Abortion rights advocates have so far failed to get a federal court to block the law, as supporters of the ban designed it specifically to escape judicial review. Rather than tasking government officials with enforcing the ban, through criminal or regulatory sanctions, the Texas state legislature has essentially delegated to private citizens the ability to bring private civil suits in court. state against abortion providers or anyone else facilitating an abortion that violates the law.
“SB 8 says ‘anyone’ can bring an action for infringement, and we’re starting to see that happening, including by out-of-state claimants,” Marc Hearron, senior counsel for the Center for Reproductive Rights, who represents Braid. in a federal lawsuit challenging the abortion ban, said in a statement Monday.
Braid did not immediately respond to CNN’s inquiries.
Anti-abortion activists who defended the new ban have touted the immediate deterrent effect it had, as many abortion providers in the state have publicly said they are currently complying with the law. .
“The question is not whether Dr. Braid is going to win this lawsuit; he almost certainly will,” said Steve Vladeck, CNN legal analyst and professor at the University of Texas Law School.
“This is how future SB8 trials can be blocked,” Vladeck added. “And nothing that happens in this case can prevent future lawsuits from being brought – that’s the whole point of transferring enforcement authority from a single state to an unlimited class of potential private plaintiffs. . “
Stilley told CNN he was suing Braid because he wanted a “judge to rule on” the law.
“I think the doctor has guts and has principles and I decided that I would be the one to clarify this law,” Stilley said.
Stilley, who was charged with several federal tax crimes in 2009 and later convicted, said he was his own lawyer in the case.
This story has been updated with additional details.
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