Texas Republicans revive effort to further restrict abortion pills

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Shelley Hall, like any excited expecting parent, already had a name picked out for her daughter and had her sonograms posted on her fridge.

But at Hall’s 10-week prenatal appointment last month, there wasn’t a heartbeat. As she coped with the “most devastating news of my life” she had to move quickly to remove leftover tissue in her cervix to prevent an infection and the first step, her doctor said, was taking abortion pills.

That’s when Hall said an already heartbreaking situation “turned into an even bigger nightmare,” because she had to prove to her pharmacy that she needed the pills for a miscarriage, not an abortion.

“On one of the hardest days of my life, it was on me to convince strangers that yes, my baby was gone,” Hall said, who hopes to become a mother someday soon.

Hall, with grief heavy in her voice, told her story at the Capitol on Friday to a Texas House committee considering a bill that opponents fear would place even more restrictions on Texans’ access to abortion medications that could be life-saving. House Bill 7 would allow private citizens to sue anyone who manufactures, distributes, mails or provides abortion medication to or from Texas.

Successful plaintiffs would be awarded at least $100,000 in damages. Women taking abortion pills would not be sued under the bill, which also does not apply to people taking them after miscarriages.

The Senate is expected to approve its version of the bill, Senate Bill 7, in the coming days. Similar legislation also sailed through the upper chamber during this year’s regular legislative session, but died on the House floor.

HB 7’s author Jeff Leach, R-Allen, said his proposal only adds teeth to the state’s law passed in 2021 that already bans most abortions.

“We are not changing the fundamental abortion laws of the state,” Leach said during Friday’s hearing, but instead his bill aims to “crack down” on abortion pills being sent to Texas from outside the state.

Leach’s bill removes any action from the Texas attorney general on behalf of a fetus, which is in SB 7. But it does send all appeals of civil lawsuits through conservative-leaning Fifteenth Court of Appeals, which has exclusive jurisdiction over cases involving the state or state agencies and challenges to state laws.

The crowd of speakers in the committee room on Friday were sharply divided over the issue. Backers of the legislation say the proposal works to protect women. Susan Chapel with a pregnancy clinic in Harris and Montgomery counties said clients are coming in with concerns about abortion pills they’ve gotten through the mail “with no instructions, no labels and no contact information.”

Opponents of the bill, however, worry that the legislation would make it difficult for people who aren’t seeking elective abortions to access sometimes life-saving medications, making it difficult for medical professionals to treat them.

Leach said the bill isn’t intended to change Texas’ law that already bans most abortions or to harm women who are at risk of dying from a pregnancy. It only works to give way for people to sue companies and people who give or mail abortion medications to Texans choosing an elective abortion.

There have been estimates that as many as 19,000 orders for abortion pills from Texans were placed after the initial abortion ban was enacted. After Texas banned abortion, many turned to online pharmacies and out-of-state providers to obtain medication to terminate their pregnancies despite the bans.

“HB 7 is the strongest proposed tool to stop this crisis,” said Ashley Leenerts, the legislative director for Texas Right to Life. “It provides a new avenue to undermine anti-state laws and empowers women who are tragically targets of the abortion industry to hold traffickers accountable.”

Several representatives of the Texas Medical Association on Friday pleaded to lawmakers to vote down the bill.

“This bill as filed runs the risk of having a chilling effect on our physician's ability” to make the best health care decisions for patients, Dr. Zeke Silva, the chair of the association’s council on legislation.

Dr. Deborah Fuller, an OB-GYN in Dallas who also spoke on behalf of the Texas Medical Association pointed to the nation’s rising maternal mortality rates as a reason lawmakers should be discussing ways to expand maternal-related health care rather than restrict it.

The rates of pregnancy-related sepsis and deaths in Texas grew by 50% after the state banned abortion in 2021, according to an investigation by ProPublica.

The Senate’s version of the bill unanimously passed its state affairs committee last week, within hours of the start of this year’s second special legislative session.

Some of the bill’s sharpest critics, who refer to the measure as the “snitches get riches bill,” say Republicans’ consecutive attempts to target abortion pills this year does nothing more than continue an attack on reproductive health access for Texans who are already having to travel hundreds of miles for an abortion.

“It’s yet another way for abortion bans to allow the state to control people’s reproductive lives,” said Kamyon Conner, executive director of the Texas Equal Access Fund, a nonprofit abortion fund that pays for out-of-state reproductive care for Texans. “It makes people more fearful to reach out for abortion care.”

Disclosure: The Texas Medical Association has been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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