Texas Gov. Abbott signed House Bill 7 into law on Sept. 17, 2025. This bill prohibits (i) a person from manufacturing or distributing an abortion-inducing drug in Texas, or (ii) mailing, transporting, prescribing, or providing an abortion-inducing drug to any person in Texas.
To enforce this law, a private citizen must bring a lawsuit through a qui tam action. Texas district attorneys or state officials cannot enforce the law, and state and local officials are prohibited from participating or influencing these actions in a variety of ways. The action must be brought within six years of the date of the alleged violation. The law includes several exemptions, including a prohibition on suits against pregnant women seeking or obtaining abortion-inducing drugs for their own abortions, as well as for internet service providers, search engines and cloud providers, transportation companies (e.g. rideshare or taxis), and delivery networks (e.g. common carriers). The exemption for pharmaceutical manufacturers, distributors, and common carriers is conditional, in that such potential defendants must adopt and implement a policy that would prohibit the use, distribution, transportation/delivery, or possession of abortion-inducing drugs except for certain limited permitted purposes (e.g. emergency, ectopic pregnancy, or miscarriage). The law also exempts otherwise prohibited conduct in an emergency, which is significant because the definition of what circumstances constitute an emergency for abortion-related purposes has been the subject of other legislation earlier this year. Each suit allows a qui tam relator to receive $100,000 per violation, in addition to injunctive relief.
With the Dobbs decision in 2022 and Texas’ multiple overlapping bans on surgical abortion, abortion medication (generally obtained from out-of-state providers) became one of the only means for Texas women to terminate a pregnancy.
The new legislation has potential impacts beyond the out-of-state providers and companies that send emergency contraception into Texas. First, the law authorizes civil qui tam suits for “distribut[ing]” or “provid[ing]” an “abortion-inducing drug,” but does not define what “distribute” or “provide” means. Whether employers or other benefit plan sponsors will face a risk of civil suit because their plans cover or advertise the availability or coverage of emergency contraception remains unknown. Although the statute expressly exempts “speech or conduct protected by the First Amendment,” the point at which First Amendment-protected conduct crosses into “providing” the medication is unclear. Second, because this is a law enforced exclusively by means of qui tam civil suits, qui tam “relators” may be inexperienced, may not be well-versed in the statute’s scope and exemptions, and may be highly motivated (both ideologically and financially) to bring multiple or wide-ranging suits.
This means that parties who determine that they have little risk may still face a lawsuit as well as the cost of defending such a suit. Finally, the statute directly challenges so-called “shield laws” or “clawback provisions” (laws in other states that protect individuals and companies from extraterritorial suits on the basis of disparate laws related to reproductive or gender-affirming care, or which allow countersuits by such parties against states and individuals that attempt to prosecute those out-of-state individuals and companies for violations). House Bill 7 attempts to both nullify those provisions and privilege the enforcement of Texas law, and erect barriers to enforcing remedies for clawback provisions.