The Texas Senate passed an expansive bill Wednesday that would allow Texans to sue out-of-state prescribers and distributors of abortion pills — along with parties who help pregnant women get access to the drugs, including internet providers.
Senate Bill 2880 focuses on the practice of physicians outside Texas prescribing abortion pills through telemedicine and mailing them to patients in the state, where a near-total abortion ban is in place. It would allow parents to pursue wrongful death lawsuits on behalf of an aborted fetus and for private citizens to sue pill manufacturers, distributors and prescribers for $100,000 or more.
The bill's sponsor, Sen. Bryan Hughes of Mineola, characterized SB 2880 as a measure aimed at protecting both women and unborn children. He said sometimes women don't get adequate guidance from doctors and experience dangerous side effects.
“These are pills that are being mailed into Texas directly to women, often without instructions, certainly without doctor’s visits before and without follow-up care after,” he said on Tuesday. “This is illegal in Texas, but it’s taking place, and we’ve thus far not been able to protect women.”
The abortion drugs mifepristone and misoprostol are approved by the FDA and widely considered safe by medical experts.
The bill now moves to the House of Representatives, where a companion bill is sponsored by more than a third of Republicans.
In Senate floor discussions, Democrats condemned SB 2880, which would use a civil enforcement mechanism similar to that of 2021’s Senate Bill 8, also authored by Hughes and commonly known as the “bounty hunter law.” SB 8 allows private citizens to sue doctors who perform abortions.
SB 2880 takes this method a step further; it is also crafted to discourage countersuits and attempts to block the law on constitutional grounds by adding penalties for lawyers and judges.
In certain scenarios, Austin Sen. Sarah Eckhardt said, it could result in judges being required to pay up to $100,000 to the initial plaintiff.
"This is a bounty hunter bonanza," she said.
Democrats also expressed concern that the bill could revive abortion statutes that date back to the 1800s. The pre-Roe v. Wade abortion ban, which includes language holding accountable anyone who "furnishes the means" for an abortion, was never formally taken off the books. Whether it can be enforced is the subject of an ongoing legal battle.
Those old statutes were also a focus of debate over SB 31, known as the Life of the Mother Act, which passed the Senate unanimously Tuesday. SB 31 aims to clarify when doctors may legally provide an emergency abortion. It would make language consistent across Texas’ various abortion laws, and would require doctors and lawyers to receive education on the laws and their exceptions.
The bill garnered broad, bipartisan support, with endorsements from doctors, medical groups and prominent anti-abortion groups, including the Texas Alliance for Life.
However, some abortion rights advocates expressed concern that the bill could inadvertently revive the 1800s-era abortion statutes by amending their language.
The Senate State Affairs Committee added amendments to specify that SB 31 does not take a stance on whether the old statutes are enforceable. A similar amendment was not added to SB 2880.
“I oppose this bill for a lot of reasons, and I just want you all to know that it does make 31 feel a lot more hollow, because it feels like the real intention is in 2880,” Sen. Molly Cook of Houston said.
Eckhardt, too, said she felt the gains she expected from SB 31 would be overshadowed by the impact of SB 2880: “One tiny step forward, followed immediately by a staggering step backward,” she said.
