But these are not the only principles at work in the law, and for several centuries Anglo-American law has made some limited provisions for third-party enforcement of rights. Known as relator actions, these special proceedings are precedents for the Texas law that should be familiar to most lawyers. A well-known example in American law is the whistleblower qui tam action, which incentivizes people with knowledge of public fraud to pursue legal remedies against the perpetrators. Another familiar example is inter partes review of patents, in which citizens ask the Patent Office to invalidate patents alleged to be unmeritorious. The principle used to justify relator actions is that someone who abuses or infringes a public right should not get away with it simply because officials lack the resources, willingness, or access to evidence necessary to hold him to account.

It is difficult to imagine two public wrongs that are more significant than the intentional killing of a human being (in legal terms, murder) or the removal of a human being’s arm or leg (in legal terms, mayhem). If unborn human beings are persons, then abortion is murder, and many abortions involve mayhem. One could fail to recognize the precedents for the Texas law only if one assumes that murdering and dismembering unborn persons is not a legal wrong.

Ironically, Chief Justice Roberts, in his dissent, failed to mention that the Supreme Court’s own precedents already authorize private persons to assert the rights of third parties in abortion lawsuits. Since 1976, the Court has allowed abortionists to assert the rights of their female patients in court when attempting to block enforcement of abortion laws, even laws that secure the health and rights of those very same female patients. No other medical professionals are permitted to assert their patients’ rights in order to obtain immunity from the law. And the Court has never allowed anyone to initiate a lawsuit against abortionists on behalf of their unborn victims. This anomalous asymmetry seems not to have been lost on Texas legislators, even if it apparently escaped Chief Justice Roberts’s notice.