Bill curbing the flow of abortion pills into Texas likely dead

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A sweeping proposal to crack down on abortion pills is likely dead after it failed to meet a key deadline in the Texas House. The bill, which had support from state and national anti-abortion groups, was seen as the most aggressive attempt yet to stop the flow of abortion pills into the state.

Senate Bill 2880 passed the Senate easily last month despite concerns from Democrats, but had languished in the House State Affairs committee before it passed out at the last minute. The report didn’t make it to the committee that schedules bills to come to the House floor in time to meet the Tuesday deadline.

“This is a significant failure from the House,” Texas Right to Life president John Seago said. “When you look at the opportunity this bill had, it seems like there was a deliberate effort to slow the bill down, if not to kill it.”

The bill would have allowed anyone who manufactured, distributed, prescribed or provided abortion pills to be sued for $100,000, expanded the wrongful death statute and empowered the attorney general to bring lawsuits on behalf of “unborn children of residents of this state.”

The bill contained several unique legal provisions, including one that said the law could not be challenged in state court, prompting separation-of-powers concerns among legal experts. Any state judge who found the law unconstitutional could be personally sued for $100,000.

Conservatives blamed State Affairs Chair Ken King, a Republican from Canadian, for sitting on the bill for more than three weeks before passing it out at the last minute. More than 40 lawmakers signed onto a letter calling on King to bring the bill up for a vote.

“If Chairman King kills a bill that would protect tens of thousands of innocent children from the murder that is abortion, Republicans will be forced to hold him accountable,” said Rep. Nate Schatzline, a Fort Worth Republican, at a press conference on Friday.

King, a six-term Republican, is relatively moderate for the Texas House, which has become more conservative in recent sessions. While Texas Right to Life has been critical of his allegiance on certain abortion issues, even going so far as to endorse his primary opponents, other anti-abortion groups, like Texas Alliance for Life, have long supported him as an ally. King did not respond to a request for comment.

Seago intimated that King would be in the running for Texas Right to Life’s “biggest disappointment” award, but said the bill stalling out reflected a larger issue with House leadership. He credited Speaker Dustin Burrows, a Lubbock Republican, for his long-standing support on abortion issues, but said he didn’t do enough to move the ball on this bill.

“For the speaker, it’s not an issue of his values, it’s an issue of his priorities,” Seago said. “For something that is controversial like this, that is going to be a tough floor fight, you have to have the speaker not just say he’s supportive of it, but actually push it.”

In a session busy with other conservative priorities like school vouchers, THC, bail and voting, further restricting abortion pills fell down the priority list for some lawmakers, especially as a majority of Texas voters opposed authorizing private lawsuits against someone who provides abortion pills.

After a bruising few years that saw the near-total banning of abortion in Texas, abortion access groups saw a sliver of hope in the failure of this bill.

“It wasn’t so long ago that the Texas Legislature could pass any extreme anti-abortion law,” said Molly Duane, senior counsel with the Center for Reproductive Rights. “This feels like a pretty radical change from just a handful of years ago.”

With the deadline for bills to come to the House floor in the rearview mirror, some conservative lawmakers are assessing ways to get aspects of the bill tacked onto existing legislation, or taken up in special session, Seago said. But he acknowledged these are likely long-shot proposals at this point in the session, which ends Monday.

“A lot of conservative legislators are looking for any and every opportunity to walk away with pro-life victories,” he said. “So as long as that political window remains open, we’ll keep pushing it.”

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