The Texas House has moved forward with a bill that permits private individuals to file lawsuits against those who prescribe, manufacture, and distribute abortion pills, both within Texas and beyond its borders.
A modified version of Texas’s H.B. 7 was approved by the lower chamber of the state Legislature with an 82-48 vote on Thursday night during Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) second special session. It will now proceed to the state Senate for consideration.
The legislation allows almost anyone to file lawsuits against a distributor or producer and obtain a minimum of $100,000 in damages if they win their cases. However, Texas women who use abortion pills to terminate a pregnancy are not entitled to sue under this bill.
The bill specifies that Texas hospitals, doctors who are residents of and practice solely in the state, and anyone who creates or provides abortion medication for treating medical emergencies, ectopic pregnancies, miscarriages, or stillbirths are exempt from being sued.
A similar bill passed the Texas state Senate but failed to make it through the House earlier this year, according to The Texas Tribune.
Texas law prohibits abortion unless it is necessary to preserve the pregnant individual’s life, with violators facing severe consequences such as fines of $100,000 or potential life imprisonment.
Both proponents and critics of the legislation agree that it will likely curtail the availability of abortion medication in Texas, which residents can currently access through telehealth providers located outside the state.
“It is already illegal to traffic abortion drugs in Texas under the Human Life Protection Act, and our priority remains enforcement of that and other laws,” said Amy O’Donnell, communications director for Texas Alliance for Life, an anti-abortion group.
“The revised version of HB 7 provides another tool against illegal abortion-by-mail while including vital protections for women.”
O’Donnell added that the organization supports the revised version of the bill since it now protects women’s privacy by barring the disclosure of personal or medical information in court filings and prohibits some abusers from being able to sue, including people accused of domestic violence or of impregnating a person through sexual assault.
Opponents argue the bill stretches Texas’s severe restrictions on abortion far beyond its state borders.
“This is yet another attempt to attack abortion access for everyone not just in Texas, but nationwide,” said Astrid Ackerman, staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights.
The bill, she added, is part of a “scare campaign.”
“It will fuel fear among manufacturers and providers nationwide, while encouraging neighbors to police one another’s reproductive lives, further isolating pregnant Texans, and punishing the people who care for them,” said Blair Wallace, policy and advocacy strategist on reproductive freedom at the ACLU of Texas.
“We believe in a Texas where people have the freedom to make decisions about our own bodies and futures.”
