The Texas State Senate on Wednesday passed a bill that would crack down on mail-order abortion medications, allowing ordinary people to sue providers, distributors and manufacturers for damages.
The bill, which passed 17-8, now heads to the desk of Gov. Greg Abbott, an anti-abortion Republican, who is expected to sign it into law.
It would allow residents unconnected to a pregnant woman to sue medical providers, pharmaceutical companies and courier services like FedEx and UPS, which may ship abortion medication to Texans, or intend to do so, for damages. Women who take such medications to end their pregnancies cannot be sued under the legislation. A suit can be brought even if no abortion has taken place.
The Texas legislation is part of a wider campaign against the increasing popularity of medical abortion. Anti-abortion activists want to expand limits on the procedure into states that ostensibly protect abortion rights, like New York and California.
The bill’s supporters hope that it will serve as a model for other states to limit access to abortion medication by prompting a rash of lawsuits. Its backers also hope that it would undermine “shield laws” in Democrat-led states that protect abortion providers from liability.
Abortion opponents have said that the legislation could limit the availability of medical abortion even in states where abortion remains legal, because manufacturers and delivery companies may limit distribution in Texas to avoid legal liability.
John Seago, the president of Texas Right to Life, described the bill as “the most effective Pro-Life defense against out-of-state companies and activists that send abortion pills to Texas.”
“Today, our law became a blueprint for the rest of the country,” Mr. Seago said in a statement after the bill’s passage in the Texas Senate.
The bill’s opponents fear how the legislation could be used.
“It deputizes Texans as bounty hunters,” said Carol Alvarado, a Democratic senator, during the debate late Wednesday. “It turns Texas into a state of surveillance, not safety, and it exports Texas law across state lines.
The number of abortions nationwide has not declined since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 and a raft of conservative states banned the procedure. Studies have found that a key reason is a rise in abortions using prescription pills, mifepristone and misoprostol, which are often prescribed and mailed from states where abortion is legal.
The legislation is Texan lawmakers’ second attempt to try to curb mail-order abortion pills. They failed to pass a similar legislation in the spring.
It was already illegal to provide abortion medication in Texas under the state’s near-total ban, which comes with serious criminal and civil penalties.
David Goodman contributed reporting.
Yan Zhuang is a Times reporter in Seoul who covers breaking news.
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