While many Texas political observers were tuned into the redistricting fight over the summer, Republicans in the state house and senate passed yet another anti-abortion bill. This one targets abortion medication, and it will very likely impact the national debate over abortion access.
House Bill 7 was passed in the second special session and would allow private citizens to sue health care providers or manufacturers who mail or prescribe abortion medication to Texans. Under HB 7, a successful lawsuit against an abortion provider or manufacturer could net a plaintiff up to $100,000. If a plaintiff is not related to the intended recipient of the medication, they would be capped at receiving $10,000 (the rest would go to a charity).
Governor Abbott signed HB 7 and it will go into effect on December 4. This latest anti-abortion bill is similar to the sweeping abortion ban that was passed in 2021. They both rely on civil litigation. In the case of HB 7, it opens the door to lawsuits against abortion manufacturers or providers in blue states, even those with shield laws that are meant to protect abortion access and distribution.
Many legal and health experts view HB 7 as another step to an eventual showdown between red and blue states over their abortion policies and protections. The Texas Signal spoke with Alina Salganicoff, a senior vice president and the director of Women’s Health Policy for KFF, a nonpartisan health policy organization, about these tensions.
Salganicoff was also the co-author of recent KFF brief exploring the intersection of federal and state policies when it comes to abortion medication. The brief notes the recent efforts from states like Texas to restrict the mailing of abortion medication, through legislation and the courts. But the brief also examines how the federal government, and particularly the FDA, could take a final and sweeping step at restricting abortion medication via access to mifepristone, one of two drugs taken in a medical abortion.
For Salganicoff, HB 7 is just one part of a larger effort to end the mailing of abortion medication, which does account for 63 percent of abortions performed in the United States according to the Guttmacher Institute. Telemedicine, which especially increased during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, also made receiving abortion medication much easier throughout the United States. That means that abortion pills “have a big target on them,” says Salganicoff.
Many anti-abortion advocates and lawmakers are doing everything in their power to fully end access to abortion medication. “A lot of this is really targeted at trying to stem the flow of medication abortion pills to pregnant people who live in states where abortion is banned or severely restricted, and that seems to be a cross-cutting priority of groups and policy makers who want to ban or limit abortion,” notes Salganicoff.
In addition to passing legislation like HB 7, the state of Texas has also been pursuing cases against medical providers who they allege shipped abortion medication to patients in Texas. Attorney General Ken Paxton has been waging a legal battle against a doctor in New York that mailed abortion pills to a woman in Collin County. His lawsuit also appears to be taking aim at New York’s shield law, which was enacted to protect abortion providers and manufacturers from legal proceedings.
Texas is not the only red state focused on ending access to abortion medication. Louisiana has also indicted that New York provider, as well as a patient’s mother, over abortion medication. The state also recently reclassified both mifepristone and misoprostol (the other drug used in abortion medication) as controlled substances. While that legislation is being challenged, such a move could impact the treatment of miscarriages or other pregnancy-related emergencies.
“There’s a lot of pressure at a lot of levels to stem the flow of [abortion] pills,” says Salganicoff. She also mentions a recent letter from fifty Republican senators (including both Ted Cruz and John Cornyn) urging the FDA to review the protocols around mifepristone.
Even when HB 7 goes into effect in a few weeks, the anti-abortion movement in Texas will likely still be working on new avenues to restrict abortion. According to Salganicoff, the Dobbs decision from the Supreme Court, which reversed Roe v. Wade, was essentially just the beginning of a new round of abortion battles. “It really opened the gate for a lot of different approaches,” she says.
Great Job Jessica Montoya Coggins & the Team @ The Texas Signal Source link for sharing this story.
