In a move that has sent shockwaves through the national debate over reproductive rights, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed House Bill 7 (HB 7) into law on September 17, 2025, marking what many are calling the most sweeping and aggressive attempt by any state to block access to abortion medication. The law, which takes effect December 4, 2025, empowers private citizens across the United States to file lawsuits against anyone suspected of manufacturing, distributing, mailing, prescribing, or otherwise providing abortion-inducing pills to Texas residents. The minimum reward for a successful lawsuit is set at a staggering $100,000, a figure that dwarfs the bounties offered by previous Texas abortion laws.
According to reporting from The Texas Tribune and The Nation, the new law builds upon Texas’s earlier near-total abortion ban (SB 8), which also deputized ordinary citizens to enforce abortion restrictions through civil lawsuits. However, HB 7 expands the scope and scale of enforcement, offering ten times the cash incentive of its predecessor and casting an even wider net over who can be sued—and who can sue. Notably, the law does not target abortion patients themselves, but instead allows anyone connected to a pregnant person, or even strangers with no direct connection, to bring suit and claim a portion of the payout. The remainder of the money, in cases brought by unrelated parties, is directed to charity.
Supporters of the law, including Texas Right to Life president John Seago, have described it as “the nation’s strongest tool” for closing what they see as loopholes in abortion law enforcement. Seago told The Guardian, “The best we can do at this point is create a higher liability and start trying to deter some of those individuals.” The hope among anti-abortion advocates is that other Republican-led states will adopt similar measures, using the Texas blueprint to quash abortion pill access nationwide.
But the law’s reach doesn’t stop at Texas’s borders. HB 7 is designed to have extraterritorial effects, targeting not only in-state actors but also out-of-state providers and manufacturers who mail abortion pills into Texas. Pharmaceutical companies could be found liable if they cannot prove in court that they have adopted and implemented policies against distributing abortion-inducing drugs—a requirement that legal experts say is ambiguously worded and potentially far-reaching.
The law arrives at a time when abortion pills—typically a combination of mifepristone and misoprostol—are at the heart of the abortion access debate. Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, telehealth and mail-order abortions have become the primary means for many to access abortion care, especially in states with bans. According to the Society of Family Planning’s #WeCount project, by the end of 2024, one in four U.S. abortions was facilitated through telemedicine, and nearly 4,000 Texans used telehealth for abortion in December 2024 alone. Aid Access, a major telemedicine abortion service, shipped almost 120,000 packs of abortion pills to U.S. residents between 2023 and 2024, with the vast majority going to states with bans like Texas.
Reproductive rights advocates have condemned the law as draconian and designed to instill fear in both abortion seekers and those who support them. Mini Timmaraju, president of Reproductive Freedom for All, said in a statement quoted by The Nation, “This [law] will set a very dangerous precedent, and Texans aren’t the only ones who will suffer. We need to sound the alarm and fight back against these bans that reward people for turning against their neighbors for financial gain.”
Legal experts warn that the law could spur an outpouring of “fishing expeditions” and harassing lawsuits from anti-abortion activists. Liz Sepper, a reproductive rights law professor at the University of Texas–Austin, told The Nation, “HB 7 invites anyone—including those with no connection at all to an abortion patient—to bring a complaint, which really incentivizes harassing lawsuits.” She emphasized that the bill could even expose friends or family members who help obtain abortion pills—or merely intend to do so—to legal jeopardy. On the legislative floor, Houston Democrat Carol Alvarado called it “the cruelest part” of the bill that it “punishes intent.”
Despite the law’s sweeping scope and the threat of costly litigation, out-of-state abortion pill providers are showing little sign of backing down. Dr. Angel Foster, who leads the Massachusetts Medication Abortion Access Project (MAP), told The Guardian, “Our mantra as a practice is: ‘No anticipatory obedience.’ We will continue to provide care until we are legally unable to do so in Massachusetts.” Her organization has sent abortion pills to Texas about 10,000 times in the past two years, and Texas accounts for about one-third of MAP’s prescriptions. Similarly, Debra Lynch, founder of the Delaware-based telehealth provider Her Safe Harbor, said, “We will not halt shipments to Texas. We refuse to comply with cruelty disguised as law. HB 7 is an intimidation tactic, not a reflection of the reality of people’s needs.”
Providers are relying on so-called “shield laws” enacted by at least eight Democratic-controlled states, including New York, California, and Massachusetts, which are designed to protect abortion pill prescribers from out-of-state lawsuits. These laws refuse to cooperate with prosecutions or enforcement actions from states like Texas. However, HB 7 specifically blocks shield law protections for defendants in these civil suits, setting up a direct legal confrontation between states. Rachel Rebouché, a law professor at the University of Texas, Austin, noted to The Guardian that Texas’s new law is “the first legislative challenge to shield laws.”
The legal battles are already heating up. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has sent cease-and-desist letters to abortion pill providers and sued a New York doctor accused of mailing pills to Texas. When a New York court clerk refused to enforce a Texas judgment, citing New York’s shield law, Paxton sued the clerk as well. New York Attorney General Letitia James has intervened, declaring, “Texas has no authority in New York, and no power to impose its cruel abortion ban here.”
Mary Ziegler, an abortion law historian at the University of California–Davis, told The Nation that HB 7 is Texas’s way of positioning itself for the inevitable federal court showdown over the constitutionality of such extraterritorial enforcement. “They’re hoping that HB 7 puts the thumb on the scale as much as possible for them,” Ziegler said. The ultimate question—whether red states can enforce penalties against defendants in shield states, or whether shield laws will hold up—may soon land before the U.S. Supreme Court.
For now, the practical impact of HB 7 may be to further isolate abortion patients in Texas, as Dr. Foster pointed out to The Associated Press: “One of the effects will be to isolate abortion patients in Texas.” And while abortion funds and support groups within Texas are bracing for the chilling effect of the law, many are vowing to continue their work. Anna Rupani, executive director of Fund Texas Choice, told The Nation, “We know that taking away abortion access in any form doesn’t stop abortions—as we have seen even with SB 8 or the fall of Roe. Texans deserve care, free from governmental interference, in their own zip codes, and in the places they feel the most safe.”
The coming months will reveal whether Texas’s unprecedented legal gambit will succeed in stemming the flow of abortion pills—or simply ignite a new front in the ongoing national battle over reproductive rights.
