Berkeley Activists Respond To Texas Abortion Law

BERKELEY, CA — Berkeley activists responding to a new Texas law banning virtually all Texas abortions without exceptions held an emergency meeting Monday.

The activists expressed outrage at the so-called “Heartbeat Act” viewed by many as an attack on women’s reproductive rights at Revolution Books Berkeley.

Texas’ Senate Bill 8 gives private citizens the right to sue anyone who “aids or abets” women who abort their pregnancies, although the women themselves can’t be litigation targets.

The law bans abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected, typically six weeks into a pregnancy.

It does not provide exceptions for victims of rape or incest.

The Supreme Court last week in a 5-4 vote upheld the Texas law, arguably the most onerous since the court’s landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that codified women’s reproductive freedom.

Reiko Redmonde, the Berkeley bookstore’s curator and manager expressed concern that implications of the new law hasn’t generated more outrage according to an NBC Bay Area report.

“The silence following this law has been deafening,” Redmonde told the television station.

“There haven’t been the millions in the streets.”

Redmonde isn’t alone in her view that the law has thus far been met with a tepid response.

After responding overwhelmingly in opposition to Republican-led voter suppression efforts in many states including Texas and Georgia, corporate America has for most part been mum on the Texas law, The Washington Post reports.

An investment advisor told the news outlet that companies who have an inherent self-interest in not offending anyone have avoided embroiling themselves in the reproductive rights issue. who advises institutional investors on questions of reproductive health for Rhia Ventures

“Companies have been allowed to be indifferent on this topic. They’ve coasted by,” Shelley Alpern of Rhia Ventures told the news outlet.

“So this development in Texas is a rude shock.”

Not all companies have been silent though.

GoDaddy, the webhosting site, cut ties with the group promoting cash bounties for those who snitch on anyone assisting in an abortion procedure.

Uber and Lyft are among a handful of other companies that have responded to the law.

The ride-hailing companies on Friday promised to cover legal fees of any of their drivers targeted by the law.

But other companies could soon follow suit according to Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a Yale professor who helped organize a discussion among corporate leaders around the voter suppression laws.

“They need to know where their stakeholders are” on the issue, Sonnenfeld told The Post.

“Corporate leaders “don’t feel they have the authority to speak to every issue — but they do need to be responsive to their constituent groups.”