As the Texas legislature convenes in Austin on Tuesday for the first day of its 2025 session, a number of anti-abortion bills have already been filed, largely aimed at halting the flow of abortion pills into the state.
The bills were crafted to stop what is widely viewed as a loophole in abortion bans across the country, as pills have helped mitigate the impact of the bans now dotting the US. Texas Right to Life, the state’s largest anti-abortion advocacy group, has had a hand in drafting a number of the bills, and is encouraging men to sue people who have supported their partners’ abortions.
“There hasn’t been any real accountability when it comes to abortion pill access, so we are going to try several different approaches to give Texans more tools to end this deadly trend,” said John Seago, president of Texas Right to Life.
Texas was the first state in the US to ban most abortions in recent years, passing a six-week ban that went into effect months before the fall of Roe v Wade. Following the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe, the state enacted a total ban that threatens doctors with up to life in prison. Texas often serves as a laboratory for anti-abortion bills and strategies that other Republican-led states later replicate.
While a Texas law already criminalizes sending abortion pills to its residents by mail, it has been difficult to enforce. An average of 2,800 abortions a month are still obtained in Texas through so-called shield laws that were passed in a number of blue states to offer protection to providers who prescribe to women in states with bans. Other abortions are self-managed with help from pills supplied through underground networks. These channels have been sources of ongoing frustration for anti-abortion activists who see the mail-order route as a final loophole that needs closing.
Texas Republicans pre-filed several bills to target pills. One would make it a “deceptive trade practice” to send pills via mail without a prescription from an in-state doctor after an in-person exam. Similar to a measure in Louisiana that doctors warn will delay life-saving care, another would reclassify abortion drugs as dangerous “controlled substances”.
Yet another bill would allow citizens to file lawsuits that force internet service providers to block websites that host abortion funds – organizations that help people seeking abortion travel out of state – or provide information about obtaining abortion pills. The bill specifically names groups that offer abortion medication through the mail, including Aid Access, Plan C and Hey Jane.
That bill seeks to use a novel enforcement mechanism written into the 2021 ban – termed a “private bounty-hunter scheme” by the supreme court justice Sonia Sotomayor – which allowed citizens to sue anyone they suspected of facilitating an abortion. “It also brings up the issue of Texas potentially projecting its power outside of state lines to regulate speech about abortion and that could get very complicated,” said Mary Ziegler, law professor at University of California-Davis and abortion law historian.
Emboldened by the incoming Trump administration, Texas anti-abortion advocates feel optimistic that their plans will come to fruition following a relatively quiet session on abortion in 2023. But even if some of the bills pass, they will probably be met with court challenges.
“With some of these efforts to block out-of-state abortion pills by mail the courts will need to first resolve the question of cross-border legal conflicts,” Ziegler said. “Whose state laws are going to apply in these scenarios? And that’s going to be messy.”
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Texas Right to Life says blocking residents from receiving abortion-inducing medication is the group’s top priority this year. The influential group is also encouraging men to file wrongful death lawsuits against organizations and doctors that help facilitate their partners’ abortions. Such a suit was filed in March 2023 by Texas resident Marcus Silva against his ex-wife’s friends for allegedly assisting in her medication abortion. Silva quietly dropped the case in October.
The group says it is working with ministries, “abortion recovery groups” and crisis pregnancy centers around the state to find plaintiffs and that it hopes to file the first such lawsuit by February.
“Several men around Texas who are fathers of abortion victims are very, very interested in holding these individuals accountable. And we are working to enable that,” said Seago. “The ultimate goal is to expose these activists and send a message that they will be held responsible to deter them from operating.”
In December, the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, sued a New York doctor for allegedly mailing abortion pills to a Texas woman, setting up a battle that tests the endurance of shield laws.
This session, Paxton could get a boost in his crusade to criminalize abortion with another bill, HB 1004, which would empower the AG to unilaterally prosecute abortion-related offenses.
Meanwhile, Democrats have filed bills to help doctors navigate the law by clarifying the medical exceptions to the state’s abortion bans and allowing them to use their best medical judgment when treating patients. They have also suggested measures to carve out rape and incest exceptions in Texas abortion law.
Neither bill is expected to pass as the legislature is under Republican control.
