A measure that would allow nearly any private citizen to sue out-of-state prescribers and others who send abortion pills into Texas has won first-round approval in the state House.
It would be the first law of its kind in the country and part of the ongoing effort by abortion opponents to fight the broad use of the pills, which are used in the majority of abortions in the U.S. — including in states where abortion is illegal.
The bill passed in the House on Thursday and could receive a final vote in the Republican-dominated state Senate next week. If that happens, it would be up to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, to decide whether to sign it into law.
Here are things to know about the Texas legislation and other legal challenges to abortion pills.
Even before the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022 overturned Roe v. Wade and allowed state abortion bans, pills — most often a combination of mifepristone and misoprostol — were the most common way to obtain abortion access.
Now, with Texas and 11 other states enforcing bans on abortion at all stages of pregnancy, and four more that bar most of them after the first six weeks or so of gestation, the pills have become an even more essential way abortion is provided in the U.S.
“We believe that women need to be protected from the harms of chemical abortion drugs,” said Amy O’Donnell, a spokesperson for Texas Alliance for Life, which supports the bill. “They harm women and their intent is to harm unborn babies.”
Under the bill, providers could be ordered to pay $100,000. But only the pregnant woman, the man who impregnated her or other close relatives could collect the entire amount. Anyone else who sues could receive only $10,000, with the remaining $90,000 going to charity.
The measure echoes a 2021 Texas law that uses the prospect of lawsuits from private citizens to enforce a ban on abortion once fetal activity can be detected — at about six weeks’ gestation. The state also has a ban on abortions at all stages of pregnancy.
The pill bill also contains provisions intended to keep those with a history of family violence from collecting and barring disclosure of women’s personal or medical information in court documents.
Anna Rupani, executive director of Fund Texas Choice, a group that helps women access abortion, including by traveling to other states for it, said the law is problematic.
“It establishes a bounty hunting system to enforce Texas’ laws beyond the state laws,” she said.
While most Republican-controlled states have restricted or banned abortions in the last three years, most Democratic-controlled states have taken steps to protect access.
And at least eight states have laws that seek to protect prescribers who send abortion pills to women in states where abortion is banned.
There are already legal battles that could challenge those, both involving the same New York doctor.
Louisiana has brought criminal charges against Dr. Maggie Carpenter, accusing her of prescribing the pills to a pregnant minor. And a Texas judge has ordered her to pay a $100,000 penalty plus legal fees for violating that state’s ban on prescribing abortion medication by telemedicine. New York officials are refusing to extradite her to Louisiana or to enter the Texas civil judgement.
If the Texas law is adopted and use, it’s certain to trigger a new round of legal battles over whether laws from one state can be enforced in another.
“Its very different from what’s come before it,” said Greer Donley, a University of Pittsburgh law professor who studies the legal landscape of abortion.
Texas and Florida — the second and third most populous states in the country — asked a court last week to let them join a lawsuit filed last year by the Republican attorneys general of Idaho, Kansas and Missouri to make mifepristone harder to access.
Those states contend — as many abortion opponents do — that mifepristone is too risky to be prescribed via telehealth and that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration should roll back approvals and tighten access.
The U.S. Supreme Court last year unanimously rejected a case making similar arguments, saying the anti-abortion doctors behind it did lacked the legal standing to take up the case.
This week, more than 260 reproductive health researchers from across the nation submitted a letter to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration affirming the safety record of the abortion medication mifepristone. In the letter, the researchers urge the FDA not to impose new restrictions on the drug and to make decisions based on “gold-standard science.”
The FDA is also facing a lawsuit from a Hawaii doctor and heath care associations arguing that it restricts mifepristone too much
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Associated Press Science Writer Laura Ungar contributed to this article.
