The Woman and Child Protection Act is from state Rep. Jeff Leach (R-Plano) and state Sen. Bryan Hughes (R-Mineola). It allows Texas to shut down companies that illegally sell abortion pills, lets women harmed by illegal abortions sue traffickers, and helps pro-lifers stop abortion activists who are hiding in liberal states.
Texas Right to Life says that “this is the nation’s boldest, most expansive effort to target the underground abortion industry.” Violators of this law could result in a $100,000 lawsuit.
Ashley Leenerts, legislative director for Texas Right to Life, is pleased.
"At the beginning of the year, we were estimating at least 19,000 abortion pills were being mailed into the state each year," informs Leenerts. "That's just a conservative estimate because it's really difficult to track even how many because there's so many different groups that are just roguely and haphazardly mailing these drugs into Texas without regard."
Leenerts said that abortion pills are "typically taken about 10 weeks into pregnancy or earlier." While the drugs are lethal to unborn children, Leenerts said that they are also extremely dangerous to women.
"The Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) did a review earlier this year of over 800,000 insurance claims, and over 1 in 10 women who take these pills end up in the emergency room within 45 days with several medical complications," states Leenerts.
The goal of this bill, according to Leenerts, was to provide new tools to go after the rogue actors who are mailing these drugs into Texas from outside of the state, especially in shield states.
“There are these blue states like New York and Colorado who passed laws to say that they're not going to cooperate with Texas whenever we're trying to enforce our law, and they'll actually protect abortionists there who are mailing these drugs into our state," says Leenerts.
AFN reports that lawsuits are expected.
