AUSTIN, Texas (LifeSiteNews) — The Texas legislature has passed legislation to crack down on the distribution of abortion pills in the pro-life state by empowering civil suits against their manufacturers and distributors.
The Woman and Child Protection Act makes it illegal to “manufacture or distribute an abortion-inducing drug in this state” or “mail, transport, deliver, prescribe, or provide an abortion-inducing drug in any manner to or from any person or location in this state.” It is to be enforced exclusively by private civil suits against those who manufacture, mail, or otherwise help women obtain the pills, with the women themselves not liable.
Those directly affected by chemical abortions, including the woman herself or immediate family members, would receive the full damages awarded from successful suits (potentially in excess of $100,000), while uninvolved private citizens would only receive up to $10,000, and the rest of the reward redirected to charity.
“Make no mistake: Big Pharma is taking advantage of loopholes in the law and mailing these pills directly to vulnerable women,” Republican state Sen. Bryan Hughes, author of the Senate version, said according to KUT News. The bill now goes to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who is expected to sign it into law.
Twelve states currently ban all or most abortions. But the unregulated, no-oversight distribution of contraceptive and abortion pills across state lines has become arguably the abortion lobby’s most effective tactic for preserving abortion “access” and is particularly problematic in pro-life states, to which they can be sent and taken in complete privacy, undermining pro-life laws.
In November 2022, Operation Rescue reported that a net decrease of 36 abortion facilities in 2022 led to the lowest number in almost 50 years, yet the chemical abortion business “surged” with 64 percent of new facilities built last year specializing in dispensing mifepristone and misoprostol. Citing data from the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, STAT says mifepristone “accounts for roughly half of all abortions in the U.S.”
This is despite the fact that a 2020 open letter from a coalition of pro-life groups to then-U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Stephen Hahn noted that the FDA’s own adverse reporting system says the “abortion pill has resulted in over 4,000 reported adverse events since 2000, including 24 maternal deaths. Adverse events are notoriously underreported to the FDA, and as of 2016, the FDA only requires abortion pill manufacturers to report maternal deaths.” A recent Charlotte Lozier Institute study also found that most emergency room visits stemming from abortion pill complications are misattributed to miscarriages, further making the pills appear safer than they really are.
“A November 2021 study by Charlotte Lozier Institute scholars appeared in the peer-reviewed journal Health Services Research and Managerial Epidemiology,” writes Catholic University of America research associate Michael New. “They analyzed state Medicaid data of over 400,000 abortions from 17 states that fund elective abortions through their Medicaid programs. They found that the rate of abortion-pill-related emergency-room visits increased over 500 percent from 2002 through 2015. The rate of emergency-room visits for surgical abortions also increased during the same time period, but by a much smaller margin.’”
Whether the issue will be resolved nationally remains to be seen. President Donald Trump has taken a number of pro-life actions since returning to office, but said on the campaign trail that he would not enforce federal law prohibiting abortion pills from being dispensed by mail. Health & Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has promised a “complete review” of the medical risks of abortion pills.
In Texas, meanwhile, Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton has been proactive in sending cease-and-desist letters to out-of-state organizations mailing the pills into Texas, threatening legal action if they do not comply.