1). “BREAKING: Texas Midwife Arrested on Felony Abortion Charges: This is Texas’ first post-Dobbs criminal abortion case”, Mar 17, 2025, Jessica Valenti, Abortion, Every Day, at < https://jessica.substack.com/
2). “Two Houston-area clinic employees arrested for allegedly providing illegal abortions: This represents the first criminal charges under Texas’ near-total abortion ban”, Mar 17, 2025, Eleanor Klibanoff, The Texas Tribune, at < https://www.texastribune.org/
3). “Stop Believing Republicans”, Mar 17, 2025, Jessica Valenti, Abortion, Every Day, at < https://jessica.substack.com/
4). “A new Texas bill is coming after online abortion pills:The 43-page measure, introduced Friday, may be the most meaningful attempt this year to block the ordering and mailing of medication abortion”, Mar 14, 2025, Shefali Luthra, The 19th, at < https://19thnews.org/2025/03/
~~ recommended by dmorista ~~
Introduction by dmorista: While Trump, and his sidekick Elon Musk, work to destroy what remains of the social welfare and environmental protections operated by the U.S. Capitalist State Apparatus; the nasty work of directly attacking the personal well-being of the American populace is left to secondary actors such as Ken Paxton, the Attorney General of the Fascist Controlled U.S. State of Texas. A recent escalation in the attacks on American women was reported in Item 1)., “BREAKING: Texas Midwife Arrested ….”, Item 2)., “Two Houston-area clinic ….”, and Item 3)., “Stop Believing Republicans”. Just a day or two ago a Houston area Midwife & her assisstant were arrested while driving by police, with their guns drawn, in a ridiculously intimidating publicity stunt, and Paxton no doubt has a dramatic Show Trial planned for them. The fact that the police arrested them with their guns drawn was noted in Item 3). Another significant aspect is that this is the first ever criminal arrest of an “alleged abortion provider” under the draconian Texas Vigilante Abortion Law. The midwife, Maria Margarita Rojas, 48 and Jose Ley, her employee, provide reproductive healthcare to impoverished Latino communities in the Houston Metro Area.
Item 3). and Item 4)., “A new Texas bill ….”, both discuss the new legislation introduced into the Texas State Legislature. Item 4). notes that:
“The 43-page bill targets tech companies that allow patients to order abortion pills online and nonprofit funds that help them travel out of state for care and gives new power to the state’s attorney general to prosecute abortion providers. Introduced by influential state legislators in the state’s House and Senate and backed by Texas Right to Life, a leading anti-abortion group, this is the most sweeping abortion bill introduced in the state since the fall of Roe v. Wade almost three years ago. (Emphasis added)
“If passed and signed into law, the measure would introduce civil liabilities for distributors of abortion pills and create a civil liability for 'the wrongful death of an unborn child' as a result of taking the medications — and empower the 'biological father of the unborn child' to file those civil lawsuits. It would also go after the websites that share information about abortion pills, as well as the financial transaction companies that facilitate people paying to order abortion medications. (Emphasis added)
“And it would make it a felony to help someone cover the costs of receiving an abortion, including helping pay for them to travel out of state for care.
“ 'This is a multipronged attack on abortion pills and from a lot of different angles,' said Greer Donley, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh and expert on medication abortion law.”
Item 4)., also notes that:
“A law like this could have an effect well beyond Texas, noted Mary Ziegler, an expert in abortion law at the University of California Davis, particularly because of its provisions targeting the internet-based distribution of abortion pills.
“ 'If the bill worked it would be a lot harder to find information about abortion online in Texas and potentially everywhere else,” she said. “There’s no internet in Texas versus elsewhere. The internet is the same everywhere.' ”
In a different development involving fanatical Forced-Pregnancy / Forced-Birth crackpots from Texas, an OB/GYN and s taunch advocate for abortion access and reproductive healthcare rights based in Portland Oregon, has filed a initiative to revoke the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists certification of the fantic Forced-Pregnancy / Forced-Birth advocate OB/GYN Ingrid Skop. Skop has publicly stated that it is safe for 9-year old girls to be forced to carry pregnancies to term, a blatanly incompetent statement. The OB/GYN who took this action, Dr. Jennifer Lincoln, maintains a website with plenty of useful information at < https://www.drjenniferlincoln.
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BREAKING: Texas Midwife Arrested on Felony Abortion Charges
This afternoon, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced the arrest of midwife Maria Margarita Rojas, charging her with providing illegal abortions—a second-degree felony in the state. The 48-year-old now faces up to 20 years in prison.
Rojas' arrest marks Texas’ first post-Dobbs criminal case for abortion, which means it will dominate national news and social media. Before the flood of coverage begins, here’s what to keep in mind:
You cannot trust any information coming from Paxton’s office or Texas law enforcement. Paxton and Texas Republicans will be working overtime to paint Rojas as a villain, regardless of the truth. They know that abortion bans are incredibly unpopular, as is arresting healthcare providers. They’re not just fighting a legal battle here, but a PR one.
Consider what happened when Paxton filed a civil suit against New York abortion provider Dr. Maggie Carpenter: His office falsely claimed that the woman Carpenter sent abortion medication to suffered “serious complications” despite providing no evidence. There’s every reason to believe Paxton’s team will pull similar tactics here, coming out with all sorts of claims about this midwife and her practice.
So please pause before sharing information about this case. Right now, almost all available details are coming from Paxton or law enforcement, meaning early media coverage will overwhelmingly reflect the state’s framing. Be careful and deliberate about the sources you amplify.
And remember: The media gets abortion stories wrong all the time. When a Nebraska teenager was arrested for self-managing her abortion, national outlets falsely reported that she had sent a Facebook message about “how she can’t wait to get the ‘thing’ out of her body.” That quote wasn’t hers—it was something a police officer said—but the line got reprinted again and again in an attempt to make the young woman seem as callous as possible.
Something similar happened when Brittany Watts was arrested in Ohio for ‘abuse of a corpse’ after having a miscarriage. Local news stories framed her as indifferent to her pregnancy loss. Misogyny, racism, and classism all play a role in the way these cases are talked about and covered.
That’s why it’s so important we remember how abortion criminalization operates: Who gets targeted in these cases is no accident. The Texas Tribune reports, for example, that Rojas’ clinics “provided health care to a primarily Spanish-speaking, low-income community.”
Paxton, a political operator who picks cases strategically, likely chose Rojas because he believes Americans won’t find her sympathetic—whether due to racism, classism, or the stories his office plans to spin. That’s what’s happening in Louisiana, where prosecutors have arrested a mother they say ‘coerced’ her teenager into having an abortion. (Tellingly, they didn’t charge with her ‘coercion,’ just abortion.)
In other words: Republicans are strategically targeting people they think the public won’t rally behind. Let’s make sure to prove them wrong.
I’ll have more details soon, but if you need information on pregnancy criminalization, go to Pregnancy Justice.
For free legal help as a patient or health practitioner, call If/When/How’s free Repro Helpline: 844-868-2812
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Two Houston-area clinic employees arrested for allegedly providing illegal abortions
This represents the first criminal charges under Texas’ near-total abortion ban.
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Two people have been arrested and charged with performing illegal abortions at a Houston-area health clinic, the first criminal charges brought under the state’s near-total abortion ban.
Maria Margarita Rojas, 48, a certified nurse midwife, and Jose Ley, 29 and her employee, were charged with the illegal performance of an abortion, as well as practicing medicine without a license. The abortion charge is a second-degree felony, which comes with up to 20 years in prison.
Rojas, who identified herself as Dr. Maria, operates a network of clinics in Waller, Cypress and Spring, where she “unlawfully employed unlicensed individuals who falsely presented themselves as licensed medical professionals,” according to a press release from Attorney General Ken Paxton.
Rojas, with Ley’s assistance, attempted an abortion on a person identified as E.G. on two separate occasions in March, according to court records. In interviews with investigators, E.G. said Rojas’ employees portrayed her as a doctor, so when Rojas told E.G. that her pregnancy was likely non-viable, she agreed to take the abortion pills Rojas offered.
The woman told investigators that she would have continued the pregnancy, but “since the gynecologist informed her of medical complications that would arise should she continue with the pregnancy, she relied on that medical advice.”
In its bail motion, the state says Rojas also performed an abortion in Harris County earlier this year. Calls to Rojas’ clinics were not immediately answered Monday.
Court records show Rojas was first arrested on March 6, charged with practicing medicine without a license and given a $10,000 bond. She was again arrested Monday morning, alongside Ley, and charged with practicing medicine without a license and performing illegal abortions. A third person, Rubildo Labanino Matos, was arrested March 8 and charged with conspiracy to practice medicine without a license, Paxton said Tuesday.
Inside the investigation
The investigation into Rojas’ practices spanned more than a month and involved more than a dozen people with the Office of the Attorney General, the arrest affidavit shows.
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It started with a complaint filed to the state Health and Human Services Commission, alleging two women had received abortions at the Clinica Waller Latinoamericana in Waller. K.P., 26, had an abortion at three months pregnant in September 2023, and D.V. had an abortion at eight weeks pregnant in January, the affidavit said. It does not specify who filed the complaint with the health agency.
Investigators with attorney general’s office and the Harris County Sheriff’s Office began surveilling Rojas’ clinics in late January and early February. They observed a man later identified as Ley working alone in one of the clinics as people came in and out, apparently seeking medical care.
Ley is not licensed to practice medicine in Texas. He was a licensed doctor in Cuba, but came to the United States illegally in 2022 and later was paroled and received a green card, according to the affidavit. Ley later told investigators that he was connected with Rojas after training with the global health nonprofit Doctors without Borders.
Ley told investigators that he saw patients as a medical assistant and would consult via tablet with someone he believed to be Labanino Matos, before signing forms with Labanino Matos’ name.
Labanino Matos, a licensed nurse practitioner, was under an agreed order from the Texas Board of Nursing for negligent treatment of a patient at another clinic. Texas law requires nurse practitioners to have a practice agreement with a licensed physician, which the affidavit says Labanino Matos did not have in place for these clinics.
In late February, the woman identified as D.V. confirmed that she received an abortion and identified Rojas as the person who performed the procedure, per the affidavit.
On March 3, an investigator was observing one of the clinics when a car pulled up and a young couple went inside. Only Ley was at the clinic, the investigator said, but after a time, Rojas arrived as well. When the couple left, it was clear the woman had undergone some sort of medical procedure, the investigator said.
On March 5, the attorney general’s office secured arrest warrants and search warrants for Rojas, Labanino Matos and Ley on charges of practicing medicine without a license. The search warrants found misoprostol, a common abortion-inducing drug that can also be used for other medical purposes, as well as ultrasound machines, forceps and other medical supplies.
Ley spoke to investigators, but Rojas declined.
While those arrests were unfolding, investigators tracked down and interviewed the woman who had been at the clinic on March 3. Identified as E.G. in the records, she said she had delivered twins by cesarean section six months prior and went to the clinic on the advice of her doctor in Mexico.
She said employees referred to Rojas as a gynecologist. Rojas told E.G. she was four weeks pregnant, but there was only an 18% chance of the pregnancy being successful. Lab results showed there was only a 9% chance of a successful pregnancy, E.G. said, which Rojas told her was insufficient to continue with the pregnancy.
Rojas gave her a pill orally, and Ley administered an IV and an iron injection. The next day, when she hadn’t had the expected bleeding, she returned to the clinic and was given an additional dose of the medication orally and vaginally. She later learned the medication was misoprostol.
E.G. paid $1,320 total for the consultations. She told investigators she was “shocked” to learn Rojas was not a gynecologist.
Based on this information, the attorney general’s office charged Rojas and Ley with performing an illegal abortion.
The state recommended Rojas and Ley each be held on a million dollar bond. On Monday, a Waller County judge ordered their bonds set at $500,000 for the abortion-related charges and $200,000 for the medical license charges.
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Stop Believing Republicans
Click to skip ahead: In Criminalizing Care, an update on the midwife arrested in Texas. Stop Believing Republicans has a reminder of the GOP’s strategy on hiding their anti-abortion extremism. All Eyes on Texas looks at new legislation seeking to ‘clarify’ the state’s abortion ban. Legislation Watch examines a Texas bill targeting pro-choice websites, tech companies, and abortion funds. You Love to See It with some good news about a bad doctor. In the States, news from Georgia, Idaho and Kentucky. Finally, in Coming Soon, a sneak peek at tomorrow’s newsletter.
Criminalizing Care
We have some new information on the Texas midwife arrested on felony abortion charges: The New York Times reports that it wasn’t just Maria Margarita Rojas who was arrested; her colleague, 29-year-old Jose Ley was also charged with the same offenses.
According to a friend, Rojas was on her way to work when she was pulled over by the police at gunpoint and handcuffed. “She said they wouldn’t tell her what was happening,” Holly Shearman says.
We shouldn’t be surprised by any of this, but that doesn’t make the news any less gutting.
Many of you have already asked about where to donate for Rojas’ legal defense; I’m working on getting that information for you as soon as possible. In the meantime, read Abortion, Every Day’s coverage below and keep an eye out for more soon:
It’s a rule to live by, especially when it comes to abortion rights.
Right now, Republican state legislators across the country are pushing bills they claim will ‘clarify’ abortion bans, add vital exceptions, or otherwise protect women and doctors. For them, it’s politically necessary: Abortion bans are wildly unpopular, and conservatives need a smokescreen—policies they can point to and tell voters, See? I’m just trying to help!
Because we’re all so desperate to reduce the suffering abortion bans cause, it’s tempting to see these bills as good news. But let’s be clear: Republicans are not writing abortion legislation to help women. These bills are designed to make conservative legislators look more moderate while embedding even more dangerous policies into law.
The Kentucky legislation I told you about last week is a perfect example. Republicans are calling it a bill to add exceptions to the state’s ban—which sounds great! In reality, though, the legislation redefines abortion, and mandates that doctors perform ‘separations’ on patients with life-threatening pregnancies. In other words: forced C-sections or inductions. That’s part of the broader strategy I warned about in November—codifying the lie that abortion is never medically necessary.
Still, Kentucky Republicans are selling it as a way to make life-saving care easier for doctors to provide. Bill sponsor Republican Rep. Jason Nemes even warned, “If you vote ‘no,’ the blood is on your hands.”
It’s a brilliant con: Pass legislation you can tell voters proves that you’re looking out for women, while handing the anti-abortion movement exactly what they want. I mean, does anyone actually believe that Kentucky Right to Life—which endorsed this bill—would back anything that made abortion easier to get?? Give me a fucking break.
That’s one of the red flags to watch for in Republican bills that claim to help women:
🚩 Are anti-abortion groups supporting it? Then it’s garbage. Even if they’re just staying quiet—refusing to lobby against it—it’s probably bad news.
🚩 Are Republicans calling it ‘clarifying’? That’s GOP-speak for we’re not changing anything meaningful, but we want you to think we are. In fact, these bills are often worse than the original bans, further embedding false definitions of abortion or other sneaky new language.
🚩 Does the bill redefine ‘abortion’ or use the term ‘separation’? This is probably the clearest sign that a bill isn’t meant to help patients, but codify the lie that abortion is never necessary. Read Abortion, Every Day’s explainer on this strategy here.
🚩 Are Republicans calling for ‘educating’ doctors? If a bill includes anything about ‘educational’ materials or videos on abortion law for health care providers, it’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing. These so-called ‘Med Ed’ bills claim to help doctors understand when they can legally provide care—making it appear that Republicans are working with doctors to save women’s health and lives. In reality, they enshrine false definitions of abortion and pressure doctors into performing forced C-sections or inductions. (Check out AED’s coverage of South Dakota’s ‘Med Ed’ law here for more.)
There are plenty more red flags, so I may add this list to AED’s Resource Page and update it as needed. But in the meantime, just don’t believe them.
And listen, I get it: We all want to reduce the harm these bans are causing, and sometimes that may mean doing incremental work. But there’s a difference between chipping away at a bad law and giving Republicans the opportunity to make those bad laws even worse. Because even if some of these bills manage to help a few people in the short term—and that’s a big if—conservatives are using legislation like this as vehicles for long-term devastation to abortion access everywhere.
All Eyes On Texas
Speaking of legislation crafted to disguise anti-abortion extremism: Texas Republicans introduced a bill on Friday that has quite a few of those red flags I mentioned.
Senate Bill 31 and House Bill 44 are being touted as legislation to ‘clarify’ (🚩) the state’s abortion ban in order to help doctors know when they can legally provide care. In fact, the legislation calls for doctors who treat pregnant patients to “complete at least one hour of ‘continuing medical education’” (🚩) on Texas’ abortion laws.
Bill sponsor Sen. Bryan Hughes said, “One of the most important things we want to do is make sure that doctors and the hospital lawyers are trained on what the law is.” Remember what I said about not trusting Republicans?
Hughes’ legislation would require the state medical board to “solicit the development of a course…by organizations representing physicians, institutions of higher education with medical schools, or other providers of continuing education to physicians acceptable to the board.”
This language immediately tipped me off to who Republicans have in mind to create this so-called ‘educational’ course: the American Association of Pro-Life OBGYNs (AAPLOG). That’s right, the extremist group that insists abortion is never necessary to save a patient’s life.
Why do I think Texas Republicans want AAPLOG to craft the course? Because that’s exactly what other GOP-led states have done.
After South Dakota passed a ‘Med Ed’ bill requiring an ‘educational’ video for doctors, the state’s health department tapped AAPLOG to create it. The result was a video filled with the group’s extremist talking points: the state defined abortion as an “intention,” claimed miscarriage care isn’t really ‘abortion,’ and directed doctors treat life-threatening pregnancies with a “maternal fetal separation”—AAPLOG’s euphemism for a forced c-section or induced labor.
If Texas passes this bill, we can expect a similar video from their state medical board.
Now, while the legal experts I spoke to say it's good that SB 31 strikes out vague language about “life-threatening conditions” from Texas’ abortion ban, they don’t think the bill would actually change much for doctors. After all, the legislation doesn’t make abortion any more accessible—it just (supposedly) clarifies when providers can act.
Meanwhile, Texas Right to Life—the state’s most powerful anti-abortion group—has been quiet on SB 31 (🚩). But last week, they proudly announced working with Sen. Bryan Hughes on something else: a massive bill targeting tech companies and abortion funds that ‘aid and abet’ the shipping of abortion medication.
After hearing about the details of SB 2880—which The 19th calls “the most sweeping abortion bill introduced in the state since the fall of Roe v. Wade”—it’s hard not to wonder if Hughes pushed his so-called ‘clarifying’ bill as a distraction from the real attack: a massive crackdown on abortion pills.
Let’s get into it in the next section…
Before reading on: If you haven’t upgraded your subscription yet, please do it tonight! Abortion, Every Day relies on reader subscriptions to publish, and we need your support more than ever:
Legislation Watch
The short version: Texas’ SB 2880 would expand the state’s already draconian ban by making it even easier to sue those who ‘aid and abet’ abortion—while also broadening what counts as ‘aiding and abetting.’
The 43-page “Women and Child Protection Act” wouldn’t just impose civil penalties on abortion funds; it takes aim at pro-choice websites that share information on abortion medication, social media platforms that allow that information to be posted, and even payment processors like Venmo, where people might send money for abortion pills.
Here’s how far this goes: If someone posted on Instagram about how to access abortion medication, any private individual in Texas could sue Instagram. If a person bought abortion medication and paid through Venmo, any private individual in Texas could sue Venmo.
It doesn’t stop there. Say there’s a clinic locator app—this bill would allow lawsuits against Apple’s App Store or Google Play for hosting it. Even encrypted messaging apps like Signal, which provide secure communication for abortion seekers, could be targeted.
If successful, this breathtaking attack on free speech wouldn’t just harm Texans—it could limit access nationwide. As law professor Mary Ziegler told The 19th:
“If the bill worked it would be a lot harder to find information about abortion online in Texas and potentially everywhere else. There’s no internet in Texas versus elsewhere. The internet is the same everywhere.”
In other words, if social media companies are worried about being sued by people in Texas, they’re not just going to censor abortion content in that state—but everywhere. The same goes for app stores, payment platforms, and more. The goal is to create a national chilling effect by making online platforms hesitant to allow any abortion-related content for fear of lawsuits.
I’m still making my way through SB 2880, but a few other things that stuck out:
It’s not just civil penalties. The bill would make it a felony to help someone pay for an abortion—even if that abortion is out-of-state. That means lending a friend money for an abortion would be a crime.
The bill defines ‘elective abortion’ as any abortion not performed in response to a medical emergency. In other words, unless your life is on the line, your abortion is ‘elective.’
And here’s the real kicker: While doctors, friends, family members, and tech platforms can all be sued under this law, some people are exempt from liability. Those exempt include the abortion patient, common carriers (like USPS) that unknowingly transport abortion medication, and—you’re going to love this one—rapists. That’s right, this bill explicitly prevents Texans from suing someone who forcibly caused a pregnancy:
I’ll have more on SB 2880 tomorrow, but I need to stop here before I give myself a rage-induced heart attack.
You Love to See It
I think we could all use a palate cleanser, so here’s something I really love: OBGYN Dr. Jennifer Lincoln is submitting a formal complaint to the American Board of Obstetrics & Gynecology (ABOG), urging them to revoke the board certification of anti-abortion activist Dr. Ingrid Skop.
If you need a refresher on Skop, click here—but fair warning, it may inspire you to throw your laptop across the room. In her complaint, Dr. Lincoln points out how Skop routinely spreads dangerous disinformation, prioritizing ideology over medical fact. She’s so reckless that even her so-called ‘research’ has been retracted by publishers.
This is a fantastic move. Skop is one of just a handful of OBGYNs working to ban abortion—because the vast majority of reproductive health providers understand that abortion is healthcare. Yet Republicans trot her out repeatedly to testify in favor of their bans, propping her up as if she represents mainstream medical opinion. Stripping her board certification could help make it clear: This is not a credible physician, and she certainly does not have women’s best interests at heart.
Just look at what happened when two major anti-abortion studies were retracted by their publisher—it became that much harder for conservatives to pretend they care about science. The same could be true here. So nice job, Dr. Lincoln!
In the States
Shanette Williams is calling on Georgia legislators to change the state’s abortion ban—the law that killed her daughter, Amber Nicole Thurman. Last week, she stood at the state capitol, demanding action:
“Today I am here, and I will continue to speak her name, I will continue to be wherever I need to be, so that this will not happen to another woman. Is it going to bring my daughter back? Nothing will bring her back. Is it going to ease the pain? Absolutely not. It won’t bring her back, but it’ll save other lives.”
I had a chance to hear Williams speak about her daughter recently, and it really did change something in me. I’ll write about it soon—I’m still processing the experience, to be honest. The thing that stayed with me most? The fact that she didn’t call Amber by her name. When she spoke about her daughter’s life and death, she said, “my baby.”
My baby was in pain. My baby is dead.
For all Republicans’ talk about caring for babies, they don’t seem to realize that women are someone’s babies, too.
Meanwhile, Idaho Republicans say they’re just going to let the horror of abortion bans “play out.” The state has already lost nearly a quarter of its OBGYNs, but conservative legislators insist there’s no need to change the laws.
Rep. Brent Crane, who chairs the committee that usually handles abortion legislation, told the Idaho Capital Sun that doctors will grow more “comfortable” with the laws over time:
“The more that this plays out, I think doctors are going to become more comfortable with it and understand the true intent behind the law. So we’ll just let it play out and see…if there is need for legislative intervention.”
Just to be clear: Women are going septic. Maternity wards are shutting down. And they want to ‘let it play out.’
And in case anyone needs another reminder of what Republican ‘pro-family’ laws actually look like: Ona Marshall from the Kentucky Reproductive Freedom Fund told a local outlet that her family decided it was too dangerous for her pregnant daughter to visit them:
"It's dangerous and life-threatening to be pregnant in Kentucky. We live in a state where it's too dangerous to be pregnant. How sad it is for us because our own daughter can't visit us in her home state? She's in a state where she is able to receive compassionate, timely, comprehensive medical care and we think it's best for her to stay in those states.”
The quote is a good reminder that the consequences of bans have ripple effects. It’s not just that patients are harmed, or that doctors have to leave anti-abortion states—families go without seeing each other because traveling has become too dangerous for pregnant people.
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A new Texas bill is coming after online abortion pills
Republican state legislators unveiled a new effort on Friday to derail the health care network that has helped people in Texas continue accessing abortion years after the Lone Star State banned the procedure.
The 43-page bill targets tech companies that allow patients to order abortion pills online and nonprofit funds that help them travel out of state for care and gives new power to the state’s attorney general to prosecute abortion providers. Introduced by influential state legislators in the state’s House and Senate and backed by Texas Right to Life, a leading anti-abortion group, this is the most sweeping abortion bill introduced in the state since the fall of Roe v. Wade almost three years ago.
If passed and signed into law, the measure would introduce civil liabilities for distributors of abortion pills and create a civil liability for “the wrongful death of an unborn child” as a result of taking the medications — and empower the “biological father of the unborn child” to file those civil lawsuits. It would also go after the websites that share information about abortion pills, as well as the financial transaction companies that facilitate people paying to order abortion medications.
And it would make it a felony to help someone cover the costs of receiving an abortion, including helping pay for them to travel out of state for care.
“This is a multipronged attack on abortion pills and from a lot of different angles,” said Greer Donley, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh and expert on medication abortion law.
- More from The 19th
It will almost certainly be challenged in court if it becomes law. Still, the impact could be tremendous. Despite the proliferation of abortion bans across the country — including in Texas, the second-largest state, and the first to effectively ban abortion early in pregnancy, the result of a six-week abortion ban it enacted months before Roe’s fall — the number of abortions performed in America is higher than ever. That’s thanks in no small part to the growing practice of health care providers mailing abortion pills, a medically safe and effective regimen, to patients in states where the procedure is banned.
The workaround has been made possible in part by a collection of statutes known as “shield laws.” Such laws have been enacted in a handful of liberal-leaning states and are meant to protect doctors and other health professionals who provide virtual care, including abortion, to patients living under bans. Thousands of patients each month have been able to access abortion medication through shield laws, according to the Society of Family Planning. The largest share of those patients are in Texas.
Abortion opponents have repeatedly attempted to halt the telehealth practice, but without success.
They have argued in court that the one of the medications used to induce abortions, mifepristone, should be removed from the market altogether, despite decades of evidence supporting its use. Senate Republicans have pressed nominees to President Donald Trump’s Cabinet to commit to reviewing and possibly restricting the use of abortion medication. Some have called for leveraging a 19th century anti-obscenity law called the Comstock Act — dormant for decades but never repealed — to outlaw the mailing of these pills. The notion that the Comstock Act could in fact outlaw mailing abortion pills is controversial and is a legal argument the previous presidential administration rejected.
Earlier this year, Texas Attorney General Kan Paxton stepped in, filing civil charges against Dr. Maggie Carpenter, a New York-based doctor who allegedly mailed abortion pills to a woman in Texas. Carpenter was fined $100,000 by a Texas court, but New York, one of the states to enact a shield law, is expected to try to block enforcement of that ruling. The case will likely play out over months if not years.
Meanwhile, Trump himself has done little on abortion policy in his first two months in office, and abortion opponents have backed away from pressing for him to endorse national restrictions. In that vacuum, the Texas bill could be the most meaningful legislative proposal in any state this year to block telehealth abortion— an area the state’s anti-abortion activists have labeled as a top priority.
“The bill that we are working on is a response to the new tactics we’ve seen to promote illegal activity,” said John Seago, head of Texas Right to Life. “This is not sustainable just as far as health policy goes.”
The bill also establishes a state-based version of the Comstock Act, making it a state crime if anyone “commits or conspires to commit” a violation of that law by mailing materials intended for an abortion.
The Texas legislature adjourns in the beginning of June, meaning the state government has just about two-and-a-half months to debate the bill. If it passes and is signed into law—as it almost certainly would be, given the governor’s vocal opposition to abortion and the legislature’s heavy Republican majority — it would take effect September 1.
A law like this could have an effect well beyond Texas, noted Mary Ziegler, an expert in abortion law at the University of California Davis, particularly because of its provisions targeting the internet-based distribution of abortion pills.
“If the bill worked it would be a lot harder to find information about abortion online in Texas and potentially everywhere else,” she said. “There’s no internet in Texas versus elsewhere. The internet is the same everywhere.”
