House Bill 5510 would allow Texans to file lawsuits against those who are mailing or trafficking abortion bills.
House Bill 5510 would allow Texans to file lawsuits against those who are mailing or trafficking abortion bills.
House Bill 5510 would allow Texans to file lawsuits against those who are mailing or trafficking abortion bills.
AUSTIN, Texas — A Texas House panel on Friday heard several hours of testimony on legislation that would crack down on abortion pill access.
The House State Affairs Committee took up House Bill 5510, which would increase the penalties for mailing abortion pills to Texas. It would also allow Texans to file lawsuits against those who are mailing or trafficking abortion bills.
The bill is similar to Senate Bill 2880, which the Senate State Affairs Committee advanced this week and sent to the full Senate for consideration.
“We need 5510 in order to make sure that women are protected, not just the baby inside the womb, but that women do not experience adverse consequences from taking these pills, especially alone, whether in their bathroom, their dorm room, or at their home,” said Mary Elizabeth Castle, the Director of Government Relations for Texas Values.
House Bill 5510, authored by State Rep. Jeff Leach (R-Plano), would allow women to sue doctors who provide them with abortion medication.
Leach said since the state’s near-total abortion ban went into effect, Texas has seen more drug-induced abortions and leads the nation in the number of abortion pills sent by mail from out of state.
“I never expected and anticipated that telemedicine would include tele abortions, and that is what is happening right now to the tune of 2,000 to 30,000 a year,” Leach said. “These are all out-of-state, in many cases out-of-country providers that are shipping these pills into the state of Texas.”
Supporters of the bill say having out-of-state doctors prescribing abortion pills to women in Texas raises concerns about informed consent, side-effect awareness and what a woman should expect when terminating a pregnancy.
“Chemical abortion pills can be very dangerous for women, especially when they’re being shipped online without any instructions and any details of the woman’s health before she takes them,” Castle said. “This is a plain and simple bill to protect women and the life in the womb.”
HB 5510 targets online abortion pill providers and tech companies that host abortion-related websites. The bill would hold manufacturers and distributors of abortion pills liable and include market-share liability.
“These pills are without medical oversight, sent to dorm rooms where students may take them alone without a physician checking for health factors or knowledge of the potential risks,” Tiffany Lomax of Texas Right to Life said. “Well, when you take abortion pills without medical supervision or at risk for severe complications, including hemorrhaging, infection, and can even have undiagnosed ectopic pregnancies, which can be fatal if left untreated.”
Aquiel Warner, a third-year medical student, said only a tiny fraction of patients suffer “major” or “serious” adverse events after taking FDA-approved abortion pills like Mifepristone.
“It has a less than 1% complication rate, which is not even what we see compared to pregnancy, where we have a 10% rate of complications from having high blood pressure and preeclampsia and clamps that can lead to death,” Warner said. “These pills are very safe.”
Texas has some of the strictest abortion restrictions in the nation. Currently, doctors can only perform abortions if a woman’s life is in danger or she’s at risk of losing a major bodily function.
Doctors who perform abortions can lose their medical licenses, or face up to 99 years in prison or a $100,000 fine if they don’t comply with the law, leaving many doctors afraid to perform the procedure. State lawmakers are considering legislation that would clarify medical exceptions to the state’s near-total abortion ban.
HB 5510 would allow citizens to sue organizations that manufacture and distribute abortion pills in Texas and even go after out-of-state websites or payment platforms.
“This bill will target the poorest women who cannot leave the state for care or who may have more difficulty accessing a physician,” Jillian Parker testified during the hearing. “Abortion access lets women create healthy family plans that work for them, and we do not need the state to complicate this and limit our choices or protect us from being forced fed these medications.”
It opens up civil liability for anyone who possesses, distributes or provides information on how to obtain abortions.
“That means that they’re going to have to turn to more unsafe methods where they might not have that level of medical supervision,” Warner said.
Warner said she worries it will prevent Texans who are in stressful and traumatic situations from getting the information they need to make informed decisions.
“For individuals that are facing a miscarriage and might have life-threatening bleeding rather may be able to access this information online, it may no longer be available, and that is what scares me,” Warner said. “I don’t want anyone ever having to sit at home making the decisions without having access to medically safe and vetted information online.”
It would make it a crime, a felony punishable by up to life in prison, for people and organizations to fund others’ abortions, even out of state, and give more power to the Texas Attorney General’s Office to prosecute abortion-related cases.
“This will reinforce the manufactured public health crisis Texas has created,” Cathy Torres, with the Frontera Fund, a nonprofit that helps people in the Rio Grande Valley access and pay for abortions, said. “Texans are being forced to travel, and I see the detrimental impact this has on people on a daily basis. Texans deserve compassion, not criminalization.”
Anti-abortion advocates say it is time Texas cracks down on the underground abortion industry.
“This bill is about holding those who are mailing and hosting these websites with these abortion pills accountable,” Castle said. “It’s going after them and making sure they’re held accountable for not only violating our state laws but mailing these very dangerous drugs to these women.”
Critics say they believe the bill to restrict abortion pills runs afoul of constitutional protections. Samantha McCoy, an attorney and a licensed mental health therapist who specialized in trauma-informed care, said, “It is riddled with legal overreach” and “absolutely and unequivocally does violate the First Amendment.”
“It is a method of control, and it hinders speech to prevent and create causes of actions for those merely informing women of their options,” McCoy said. “It also weaponizes the justice system against professionals, family members, and even people who are simply offering information.”
Lawmakers left the bill pending in committee. They will have to vote to advance it in order for the full House to debate it.