Once again, Texas invites lawsuit abuse in quest to stop abortion | Opinion

Here in Fort Worth, we get the obsession with the Old West.

But Texas lawmakers have taken it too far, essentially issuing “Wanted” posters for anyone who might be connected to the use of medication to induce an abortion. And like outgunned sheriffs on the frontier, the tool they’ve chosen is a modernized bounty: civil suits that anyone can bring.

This particular brand of cosplay is tiresome. Under a bill that passed the Legislature in the special session that just wrapped up — and which Gov. Greg Abbott is all but certain to sign into law — it’s open season, legally speaking, on anyone who manufactures, distributes, mails or otherwise provides the pills.

It harks back to the novel anti-abortion law approved in 2021, the fetal-heartbeat bill that banned abortion after six weeks’ gestation. Lawmakers knew that the Roe v. Wade ruling protecting abortion rights would prevent criminal enforcement of such a ban. So, they opened the courthouse to anyone to sue a doctor or provider, or anyone else, who helped a woman obtain an abortion.

Women who sought or had the procedure were not eligible to be sued, and those who take the pills for themselves would not be, either. In their fervor to eradicate abortion, though, how much longer can Texas Republicans maintain that exemption?

That’s one of the chief concerns we have about this particular bill and this general approach to enforcing the law. Turning neighbors and families against each other isn’t the best way to protect life.

Texas Republicans have taken victory laps over the state’s abortion ban, one of the strictest in the country. The number of abortions in the state has essentially dropped to zero, a handful each month based on emergency medical needs, from tens of thousands per year before Roe was overturned in 2022.

That has come at a price, including horrific cases of women in grave danger or with significant fetal abnormalities who were denied by hospitals and doctors fearing prosecution. Lawmakers attempted this year to clarify when abortions could be performed. But the ban probably contributed to rises in maternal mortality between 2019 and 2022, when Texas’ increase in the rate of pregnancy-related deaths was higher than that of the nation as a whole. Black women in Texas face a significantly higher risk than other groups, and Hispanic women are in more danger as well.

Concerns about the abuse of telemedicine for easy prescription access are legitimate. It’s become a business model to ship drugs for erectile dysfunction or hair loss after a physician conducts a cursory online exam. Those drugs have their dangers, too, and Texas lawmakers don’t seem overly concerned with allowing lawsuits over Viagra or Propecia.

Abortion-causing medication comes with risks, but the pills are not considered inherently dangerous. If, as the bill’s sponsors argued, the goal is to keep drug companies from exploiting women, launch a public awareness campaign. Of course, those women would be safer if they could see a doctor in person and obtain a prescription from a local pharmacist, but that’s clearly not on the agenda.

Enforcing a criminal law against the pills would be difficult, and many prosecutors would not be eager to bring cases. So, the very conservatives who ran for office for years on promises to curtail costly, frivolous lawsuits now open the door wide to civil action. Imagine the time and effort courts could expend on such cases. And whatever happened to Texas’ pride in individual choice and the value of minding your own business?

The new law will take us one step closer to overly intrusive efforts to police abortion. Texas can’t go after doctors and pharmacists in other states on criminal charges without the cooperation of officials there. Instead, they’re flinging the doors of the courthouse open and encouraging the kind of neighbors turning in neighbors that is reminiscent of the old East German police state.

That’s just not the Texas way — or it shouldn’t be.