Republican lawmakers in Texas have opened a new front in their efforts to crack down on abortion, this time with a bill that would enable lawsuits targeting the use of medication to terminate pregnancies. Their proposal would also take aim at shield laws in other states that protect manufacturers and the doctors who prescribe abortion pills.
In Texas, it is already illegal to knowingly mail, carry or deliver abortion-inducing drugs. It is also illegal for a doctor not licensed in the state of Texas to prescribe abortion medication.
Now, in the midst of an already controversial special legislative session, lawmakers have reintroduced a bill that would allow lawsuits to target anyone who manufactures, mails, delivers, prescribes or distributes abortion pills. The bill would also permit people to file a wrongful death lawsuit if the medication results in harm or death of a fetus or the mother, within a statute of limitations up to six years.
“These are the pills that are being mailed into Texas directly to women, often without instructions, certainly without doctors as before, and without follow-up care after,” the bill’s sponsor, Texas state Sen. Bryan Hughes, a Republican, told the Texas Tribune earlier this year. “This is illegal in Texas, but is taking place, and we’ve thus far not been able to protect women.”
The World Health Organization says the pills — a combination of mifepristone and misoprostol — can be safely prescribed for women to self-administer at home, without the direct supervision of a health care provider, in the first trimester.
