A Texas woman has sued a man she says dosed her with abortion pills against her will as well as the provider who she says supplied the pills.
The woman, Julia, whose name has been changed for privacy, on Monday filed a federal wrongful death lawsuit against the telemedicine abortion service Aid Access and its founder, Dr Rebecca Gomperts, as well as a man, John (whose name has also been changed), a US marine who Julia said impregnated her and subsequently dosed her with abortion pills.
Julia is being represented in the lawsuit by Jonathan Mitchell, a lawyer who masterminded the Texas six-week abortion ban and has become one of the major architects of anti-abortion strategy in the post-Roe v Wade era. Mitchell has represented men in lawsuits who have sued abortion providers after accusing their female partners of undergoing abortions against their wishes, but this case is thought to be the first of its kind with a female plaintiff.
After Julia revealed her pregnancy to John, he repeatedly pressured her to get an abortion and went so far as to order abortion pills online from Aid Access, a service that ships abortion pills to all 50 US states, according to Julia’s lawsuit, which includes extensive screenshots of texts between John and Julia.
When Julia refused to take the pills, John allegedly browbeat her and suggested that he testify against Julia in her ongoing divorce proceeding against her ex-husband. Julia told John that her ex-husband had physically and emotionally abused both Julia and her three children, the lawsuit alleges.
Then, in April 2025, John proposed that he come over to Julia’s house for a “trust building night”, according to the lawsuit. While Julia stepped outside to let her dog in, John allegedly dissolved at least 10 abortion pills into her hot chocolate.
Typically, US abortions consist of two drugs, mifepristone and misoprostol. While mifepristone is usually swallowed, misoprostol is meant to dissolve slowly in the vagina, under the tongue or in the cheeks.
Soon afterward, Julia began cramping and bleeding, her lawsuit alleges. John said that he would pick up Julia’s mother, so that she could watch Julia’s children while they went to the emergency room. However, John did not return.
Julia then allegedly discovered the box of mifepristone that John had ordered from Aid Access, which John had left at her house. The box was empty. Julia also allegedly found an orange pill bottle containing both mifepristone and misoprostol pills.
She rushed to the ER but ended up miscarrying eight weeks into her pregnancy. There is no medical test that can determine whether abortion pills, if taken orally, caused the end of a pregnancy.
The lawsuit, which was previously reported by Autonomy News, is now seeking “nominal, compensatory, and punitive damages”. In addition to accusing John, Aid Access and Gomperts of violating multiple laws in Texas – where virtually all abortions are banned – it alleges that the trio also violated the federal Comstock Act, a 19th-century anti-vice law that outlaws the mailing of abortion-related materials.
Legal experts long regarded the Comstock Act as a dead letter, since Roe v Wade kept its ban on abortion-related materials from taking effect for decades. However, since the US supreme court overturned Roe in 2022, anti-abortion advocates such as Mitchell say it can now be revived. They have repeatedly cited the Comstock Act in lawsuits, in the hope that courts will decide to let it take full effect.
Aid Access, Gomperts and the US marines did not respond to a request for comment.
Reached by phone, John said he had no comment on the lawsuit.
Telemedicine groups including Aid Access are currently mailing abortion pills through the use of “shield laws”, which have been enacted in a handful of blue states since Roe fell. These laws, which aim to protect abortion providers from facing civil and criminal liability if they mail pills to people who live in states that ban abortion, have proven critical to post-Roe abortion provision, as abortion pills make up an increasing share of all US abortions. Between 2023 and 2024, Aid Access shipped almost 120,000 packs of abortion pills to US residents, according to a new study released on Monday.
However, shield laws have not been tested in court. Recently, Texas sued a New York court official for refusing to fine a New York-based abortion provider, as the official had said that New York’s shield law blocked him from enforcing the fine.
