A comprehensive crackdown on abortion pills passed out of a Texas House committee Friday, after conservatives criticized leadership for allowing it to languish.
Since Texas banned nearly all abortions in 2022, people have found ways to obtain abortion-inducing drugs from a wide range of sources: out-of-state doctors, overseas pharmacies and whisper networks around the state, among other avenues. In response to red state abortion bans, blue states have passed shield laws to protect their providers from criminal or civil penalties for mailing pills.
Anti-abortion groups and conservative lawmakers in Texas, frustrated by this easily exploited loophole in the law, have tried to stop this proliferation of pills with lawsuits and legislation. Senate Bill 2880 represents the most wide-ranging effort yet, giving the state a slew of new and legally unprecedented tools.
If the bill becomes law, anyone who manufactures, distributes, mails, prescribes or provides abortion-inducing drugs can be sued for up to $100,000, even if the pills aren’t proven to be the cause of death for the fetus. It expands the wrongful death statute to encourage men whose partners willingly terminate their pregnancies to sue whoever provided the pills for up to six years after the event. It also empowers the Attorney General to bring lawsuits on behalf of “unborn children of residents of this state.”
The bill also contains a controversial provision that says it cannot be challenged in state court before it is enforced, and a state judge who holds the law to be unconstitutional can be personally sued for $100,000.
The bill passed the Senate 19-11 and was referred to the House State Affairs committee, where it lay dormant for three weeks. With the deadline for House committees to pass Senate bills approaching on Saturday, 43 Republican members of the House signed onto a letter, urging Chairman Ken King, a Republican from Canadian, to take up the bill.
“Texas is in crisis,” the letter said, noting that the state’s strict abortion laws are “subverted daily by bad actors who flood our state with dangerous and deadly abortion pills.”
To really drive the message home, a group of House members held a press briefing Friday to demand that SB 2880, among other conservative bills, move before the deadline.
“We are in a war right now, and you need to understand we are running out of time,” Rep. Mitch Little, a Lewisville Republican, said. He said that a recent bill to clarify Texas’ abortion laws was a “noble thing to do, but there’s a balance to this equation that has to be completed.”
Just two hours later, the House State Affairs committee gathered for a last-minute meeting, where they voted 8-5 to move the bill. It now faces another tight turnaround to preliminarily pass the House before the Tuesday deadline.
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