Texas Approves Pathway for Suits Against Abortion Pill Suppliers

Any Texan can soon file a lawsuit against an abortion pill manufacturer or distributor under a first-of-its kind bill approved by the legislature Wednesday that’s likely to fuel more interstate legal battles over abortion care.

The Texas Senate voted 17-8 to send the bill (HB 7) to the governor’s desk. The legislation, sponsored by state Rep. Jeff Leach (R), passed the House on Aug. 28 in an 82-48 vote.

The passage checks off a key item on Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) agenda for his July and August special sessions.It also delivers a major win to national organizations like Students for Life of America and Americans United for Life that backed the bill as part of a nationwide effort to limit the distribution of abortion medication.

Anti-abortion groups hope Texas is just the first state to pass the legislation, which also allows women and family members to file wrongful injury or death suits related to abortion pill use.

Should more states follow Texas’ lead, legal analysts expect a wave of interstate disputes testing how far the restrictions can go to limit access to an FDA-approved medication and penalize health-care providers protected by shield laws in their own states.

Abortion is already completely banned with limited exceptions in Texas, but residents have still been able to access abortion-inducing drugs by mail from providers in other states. Republicans and anti-abortion groups see this as a loophole to get around state abortion restrictions that they argue are designed to protect women and unborn children.

Texas state Sen. Bryan Hughes (R), who authored the Senate companion bill to HB 7, previously said in an interview that the legislation falls within the right of states to protect their citizens. The bill is based on legislation developed by Students for Life that has since been adopted as a model bill by the National Association of Christian Lawmakers.

“That little unborn baby growing inside her mother’s womb is the most helpless, the most innocent, and the most deserving of our protection that a human being can ever be,” Hughes said in remarks on the Senate floor just before the vote.

‘Bounty Hunters’

Democrats in the state legislature, however, have condemned the legislation as an unconstitutional attempt to restrict access to reproductive health care.

Texas state Sen. Carol Alvarado (D), chair of the chamber’s Democratic Caucus, said in floor remarks Wednesday that the bill “deputizes Texans as bounty hunters.”

Alvarado also argued that allowing lawsuits against providers and distributors in states where abortion is protected goes against the basis of the US Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization allowing states to set their own laws on abortion.

Another Democrat, Sen. Nathan Johnson, said the bill is part of Texas Republicans’ “endless series of assaults on abortion and women’s rights,” adding it likely violates multiple provisions of the US Constitution, including the commerce clause and the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause.

Reproductive health providers and distributors continue to defend the safety of mifepristone and misoprostol—the two drugs in the regimen approved by the Food and Drug Administration to end a pregnancy within the first 10 weeks. By the end of 2024, nearly half of all abortions provided via telehealth were given by abortion providers in states with shield laws to patients living in states with bans or early gestational limits, according to data from the Society for Family Planning.

The Texas legislation’s passage was temporarily held up by Democratic lawmakers leaving the state in protest of new congressional maps backed by President Donald Trump.

The delay, however, didn’t stop a Texas woman from filing a wrongful death suit against an Austrian abortion pill supplier and her unborn child’s father, who she accused of tricking her into taking abortion-inducing drugs. The lawsuit, filed Aug. 11 in the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas, is believed to be the the first of its kind against an abortion pill supplier.