Texas Governor Greg Abbott is on the verge of signing a new law permitting private individuals to take legal action against anyone involved in prescribing, distributing, or providing abortion pills either in Texas or from out of state.
Both advocates and critics of this legislation see it as a potential model for other states aiming to impose stricter controls on abortion pills, possibly leading to fresh legal conflicts between states with differing stances on the matter.
There is also a concern that this law could reduce access to abortion pills in states where they remain legal, if producers and distributors choose to halt shipments to avoid lawsuits.
The Texas Senate passed House Bill 7 by a vote of 17-8 late Wednesday. Before the vote, the bill’s author, State Senator Bryan Hughes, stated that the law aims to shield unborn children and expectant mothers from what he termed as “harmful, illegal drugs.”
In similar remarks on Tuesday, he also said the bill will hold Big Pharma accountable.
“If you manufacture and send harmful, illegal medications into Texas leading to harm, you will face consequences,” Hughes asserted. “We stand by our commitment to safeguard Texans, and this legislation is a part of that mission.”
It’s unclear when Abbott will sign the bill. His office did not respond to a question on his timing.
Here’s what to know about the bill.
Texans can sue for up to $100,000 in damages
The bill grants almost any Texan the right to sue providers, sellers, or manufacturers of abortion medications, with successful cases potentially awarding plaintiffs up to $100,000 in damages.
Women who take abortion medication to end a pregnancy cannot sue, according to a revised version of the bill that was passed in the state House last week.
The revised version of the bill passed by the House does include some protections for distributors and providers of the drug.
Texas hospitals and physicians who live and practice exclusively in the state cannot be sued. Manufacturers and distributors of abortion medication for treating medical emergencies, ectopic pregnancies, miscarriages or stillbirths would also be shielded from lawsuits under the revised bill.
Some abusers, like people accused of domestic violence, are barred from suing abortion pill providers and manufacturers under the bill as well.
Latest Texas crackdown on abortion pills
Texas has almost entirely banned abortion and imposes heavy penalties on people who violate its abortion laws.
But abortions are still occurring in the state due to the availability of mail-order abortion medication which Texas can access via telehealth providers located in states with abortion shield laws in place.
HB 7 is Texas Republicans’ latest attempt to squash abortion pill access in the state after lawsuits against abortion providers in California and New York have yet to curb the flow of the drugs into Texas by overriding abortion shield laws enacted in both states.
“They are very deliberately going after this, and this is part of a larger campaign,” said Jessica Waters, senior scholar in residence at American University, who has an expertise in reproductive rights law.
In December, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against New York doctor Margaret Carpenter for allegedly mailing abortion medication to a woman in Texas. A state judge ordered her to stop providing abortion medication to Texas women and fined her $100,000.
Neither Carpenter nor her lawyer responded to the lawsuit or showed up for a court hearing in Texas.
Paxton’s office then tried to force a New York county clerk to enforce a default judgment and to authorize the collection of the penalties. The clerk refused and told the Texas officials that New York’s abortion shield law protected Carpenter from either action.
A Texas man filed a civil lawsuit against a California doctor for allegedly providing his girlfriend with abortion medication. Johnathan Mitchell, an attorney who has helped design many of the Lonestar state’s abortion laws, filed the lawsuit on behalf of his client Jerry Rodriguez.
Paxton and 14 other Republican attorneys general took the fight against abortion shield laws one step further by calling on congressional leadership to intervene in the interstate battles over abortion laws.
‘Blueprint for the rest of the country’
Texas and Florida also asked a federal judge in late August to allow them to join a lawsuit seeking to restrict access to mifepristone nationally, one of two drugs typically needed for a medication abortion.
The lawsuit—currently led by Missouri, Kansas, and Idaho—challenges the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone and alleges it acted improperly when easy restrictions on the drug, including making it available through the mail.
The goal of Texas’s multiple lawsuits is to ultimately have the Supreme Court weigh in on abortion shield laws and how they impact conflicting state abortion laws, legal experts told The Hill.
“These are all parallel efforts, and I think the theory is that one of them is going to stick,” said Waters.
Backers and critics of the bill agree that the legislation will likely serve as a model for other state lawmakers, potentially resulting in a flurry of copycat bills and future lawsuits against providers and manufacturers.
After the bill passed, Texas Right to Life President John Seago called the legislation a “blueprint for the rest of the country.”
“Texas Right to Life has worked with lawmakers since November to create the most effective Pro-Life defense against out-of-state companies and activists that send abortion pills to Texas,” he said in a statement. “This trend is killing tens of thousands of babies a year and harming their mothers, but today, our law became a blueprint for the rest of the country.”
