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Measure empowers citizen lawsuits to help police abortion

ban

Critics say measure will foster climate of 'bounty hunters'

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Inducement with medication accounts for 63% of U.S.

abortions

By Steve Gorman

Sept 18 (Reuters) - Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed

into law a bill to crack down on mail-order distribution of

abortion medications, already banned in his state, by empowering

private citizens to sue individuals and companies for shipping

the pills into Texas.

Decried by critics as an effort to turn citizens into

anti-abortion "bounty hunters" and impose Texas laws on other

states, the bill was signed by Abbott, a staunch anti-abortion

Republican, on Wednesday night without announcement.

It cleared the state's Republican-led legislature earlier

this month.

The bill is designed to make it harder for women in Texas to

obtain the prescription drugs enabling them to end their

pregnancies at home in defiance of the state's ban on nearly all

abortions.

One unanswered question is whether the Texas statute will

undermine "shield laws" enacted in Democratic-led states where

abortion remains legal to safeguard providers against criminal

and civil penalties stemming from another state's abortion laws.

The Texas measure, similar to a citizen enforcement

mechanism contained in an earlier state statute banning

abortions once a fetal heartbeat could be detected, is due to

take effect in about three months.

According to abortion rights advocates, pharmacologically

terminated pregnancies now account for 63% of all U.S.

abortions, three years after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned

the 1973 landmark Roe v. Wade case that had established a

constitutional right to abortion.

With many abortion clinics shuttered since 2022, telehealth

consultations and mail-order shipments have provided an avenue

for at-home abortions in places where women's only other choice

is to travel to a state where abortion remains legal.

TURNING CITIZENS INTO WHISTLEBLOWERS

The new measure allows ordinary citizens to file suit

against medical providers, pharmaceutical companies, delivery

services and individuals involved in helping women obtain the

abortion pills -- mifepristone and misoprostol.

Plaintiffs who prove their case in court would win $100,000

in damages per violation.

Women who take the abortion pills are expressly exempt from

liability under the measure. There are also exceptions for the

use of mifepristone and misoprostol in medically necessary

procedures related to miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies.

Drug manufacturers and shipping companies such as FedEx ( FDX )

, United Parcel Service ( UPS ) and Amazon.com ( AMZN )

would not be held liable if they were shown to have implemented

policies adhering to the state ban.

The bill is designed primarily "to hold individuals

accountable who are mailing abortion pills into Texas and are

seeking to avoid criminal prosecution," said John Seago,

president of Texas Right to Life, which lobbied heavily for the

measure.

Critics say the measure will lead ordinary citizens to

inform on their neighbors.

"The bill only works if we turn Texans against each other,"

state Senator Carol Alvarado, a Democrat from Houston, said,

when speaking against the bill.

According to Seago's group, abortion pills are flowing into

Texas from other states and countries at the rate of more than

19,000 orders a year.

The measure to stem the shipments is modeled after "qui tam"

provisions of federal and state-level False Claims Act statutes

designed to expose fraud against the government by enabling

whistleblowers to sue alleged wrongdoers and pocket some of the

proceeds as a reward.

In recent years, citizen lawsuits have been embraced as a

tool by some social conservatives to force compliance with

anti-abortion laws.

A provision for citizen lawsuits was contained in a 2021

Texas statute outlawing abortions once fetal cardiac activity

was detected. The Supreme Court's reversal the following year of

Roe paved the way for Texas and 13 other states to ban abortions

altogether, and led anti-abortion forces to seek new enforcement

tools.