A Texas man is suing three friends of his ex-wife, alleging they helped her obtain abortion drugs in violation of state law after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year. Had given.
Marcus Silva filed a wrongful death and conspiracy lawsuit against three women in Galveston County on Thursday. He included photos of text messages in the lawsuit to support his allegations that the three women arranged to receive the pills and concealed their actions.
His ex-wife is exempt from liability in the case, the suit notes, and is not a named defendant. NBC News is not naming the three women who are being sued or Silva’s ex-wife.
Silva and his wife were divorced in February but were still married when she became pregnant in July. It is unclear from Silva’s lawsuit why his ex-wife decided to terminate her pregnancy, but it appears from the alleged text messages that she had already made plans to leave him by that time.
“I know he will use it against me in any way,” she reportedly wrote to her friends. “If I told him first, which I’m not, he would use it (in a way) to try to be with me.”
The alleged messages are not dated, but some states passed trigger laws restricting abortion that went into effect on June 24 following the official decision on Dobbs v. Jackson on Women’s Health. According to screenshots in the lawsuit, the three women shared information on abortion resources despite such laws in Texas.
The women also discussed the possibility of traveling out of state for care. At one point Silva’s ex-wife spoke to someone who could refer her to “places in New Mexico and Colorado”.
According to the text, a woman shared a link and screenshot of information about abortion medicine, noting that it can be done safely at home. She shared messages from an unknown person saying the pill was still available in the state but the legality of ordering it online and shipping it was “unclear”.
According to the texts, Silva’s wife tells the group that she will be willing to take the pills. She then told her friend that the help “means the world” to her.
He wrote, “I am so lucky to have you all by my side.” “In fact.”
The woman then tried to estimate how far along she was in the pregnancy using her last period and ovulation period, and according to the texts, she was only five or six weeks along. The women chose a day to begin the procedure, the texts said, determining that it was still within the window to safely take the pills.
“Delete all conversations starting today,” a friend wrote later.
Mifepristone was approved by the Food and Drug Administration over 20 years ago to terminate pregnancies up to 10 weeks. Taken with another drug, misoprostol, the regimen is highly effective.
The law in Texas that bans abortion after six weeks goes into effect on September 1, 2022. Requests for abortion pills subsequently skyrocketed through resource organizations such as Aid Today, NBC News reported last year.
The FDA said it would continue to allow delivery of the abortion drug through the mail, but a Texas law passed in December forbids medical professionals from prescribing it to patients.
Last month, an anti-abortion group filed a lawsuit in Texas in an effort to take mifepristone off the table entirely. The group alleges that the government did not adequately evaluate the safety of mifepristone and should not have made it accessible through telehealth during the COVID pandemic.
President Joe Biden’s administration has filed a response stating that the benefits of mifepristone outweigh any risks. The government has also said that not only is the drug not safe, but “the public interest will suffer dramatically” if mifepristone is removed from the market.
Walgreens, a nationwide pharmacy chain, announced earlier this month that it would no longer sell the abortion drug in 20 states after their attorneys generals sent a letter threatening legal action. Walgreens said it responded to each attorney general and said it would no longer sell abortion pills — by mail or in their stores — in those states.
Some of those states, including Texas, have passed a ban on the drug, but others, such as Florida, still allow their legal sale.