Texas abortion law for OOS students/parents?

Parents Forum
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I am not very familiar with the law, but I am wondering if there’s a lawyer from TX (or elsewhere, really) who could answer this hypothetical question and other general info on how the law will apply to parents/students from OOS:

Say you live in Washington but your daughter goes to school in Texas. If she gets pregnant, decides to fly to Washington for an abortion after the Texas 6-weeks limit, and you pay for her ticket, are you now in legal trouble in Texas for helping someone get an abortion?

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Not a lawyer, but interested in answer. Not that Texas was a consideration for school, but Florida may be so following along.

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I don’t think so. I believe the law applies to abortions performed in Texas.

Many things are illegal and one state but legal in others, and there is no punishment if you cross state lines to do those activities - prostitution, drugs, marriage at a lower age, marriage to same sex partners (before), gambling. Before Roe v. Wade, women used to cross state lines to get abortions in states where they were legal.

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The law allows anyone in Texas to bring suit against anyone who helps a woman from Texas seek/obtain an abortion ANYWHERE. That means that if you give a woman who is pregnant in Texas ANYTHING that helps her to travel to where she can obtain an abortion, any person in Texas can file a suit against the one who gave the assistance, and is guaranteed at least 10K “bounty”, assuming the suit is successful.

What this means is that if your daughter at college in Texas gets pregnant, and you send her a plane ticket, or money for her to travel to another state to obtain an abortion, or if you go to Texas and drive her to another state, or if you drive HER OWN CAR to Texas for her, and hand her the keys to it, so that she can drive herself out of state for an abortion, anyone in the state of Texas can bring suit against you in Texas for having violated this law. Realistically, what this could mean is that if your daughter ever tells anyone that she is/was pregnant, and went out of state for an abortion, anyone from anywhere who helped her in any way is at risk of being sued by anyone in the state of Texas.

I started a thread about this a few months ago, about whether families were concerned about the availability of abortion in states to which they were sending their daughters for college. I think the thread was quickly shut down. I am sorry to see how quickly this has become reality, rather than conjecture.

The girls and women who are going to be most severely affected won’t be those attending college in Texas (although why any person in their right mind would consider going there for any reason now, is a mystery to me). It will be the very young, the poor, the undocumented, the girls and women who are least equipped to fight for themselves. God help them - the state of Texas and the US government sure as hell won’t.

Biden should have (and still could) request that the FDA make the abortion pill available over the counter. It is safer than continuing a pregnancy, and would have absolutely no adverse effect on a pregnancy that fails to be aborted. If it were made available OTC, and cheaply (which it should be, since it’s generic), that would put the means of a first trimester abortion into the hands of women inexpensively, privately, and bypass all of the horrendous state laws meant to obstruct a woman’s right to obtain an abortion.

And lest parents of boys think that their son doesn’t have to worry about this, and can safely choose to go to school in Texas, imagine this scenario. Your son gets a girl pregnant. They decide to drive out of state together to get her an abortion, most likely after the 6 week deadline (which BTW is only about 4 weeks after the precipitating act, and only two weeks after the missed period date, since pregnancies are dated from the date of onset of the last period before becoming pregnant, meaning about two weeks before the person had sex and got pregnant). Someone, ANYONE, in the state of Texas finds out that he helped his girlfriend leave the state to get an abortion, either by money, or driving with her, or helping her to find a clinic out of state, or paying for her hotel where she went, ANYTHING. They bring suit against him in the state of Texas, and your son is now fighting a lawsuit, and very likely to lose it, and owe the one who brought suit at least 10K, plus their legal fees and court costs. Is this really the experience you’re seeking for your college age son?

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The person would have to be sued in Texas. Thus served in Texas. Of course you don’t want to be banned from ever going to Texas…but in the OP’s question, if they were out of state it is unlikely they could be served.

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Many women that want an abortion can’t afford to go to another state.

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I am deeply opposed to the new Texas law. Nevertheless, the scenario you pose is highly unlikely. The law will be attempted to be used to shut down planned parenthood and abortion clinics. Women have traveled out of state for abortions for generations, and will continue to do so. Whether outside groups can provide transportation and funding for them to do so will be litigated. There are enough horrid aspects of the law as it is; alarmist posts of wildly improbable events do not help.

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Here’s an article that addresses your question:

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Really? I would have thought that all the circumstances bringing us to the point where we have a Supreme Court that refuses to issue a temporary stay for such an unconstitutional law would have been wildly improbably. I would have thought that just about everything that occurred, politically, from 2015 to early 2021 would have been wildly improbable. And yet, here we are.

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Unfortunately, the threat to abortion rights has been alarmingly clear for several years, and should have been of sufficient concern to Supreme Court justices, present and deceased, to warrant action. The federal legislative and executive branches could be expected to intervene.

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I’m shocked at the lack of outcry in the form of announced boycotts. When certain southern states put anti-gay legislation through, boycotts were loudly proclaimed, and the legislation was rescinded. Where are the cancellations of contracts, conventions, etc? Is it because this only affects women and girls?

When I mentioned schools in Texas to my son, he said, “Mom, there is no way I’m going to school in Texas.” And that was BEFORE this law was enacted. I just don’t see how anyone could send their child to school in Texas now.

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Well, for some it is the only economically viable choice. Finances do matter, and that $10k instate tuition is critical for many.

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My daughter was quick to add TX to the list of states where she would never want to live.

I’m absolutely sure if she was applying to schools, TX would not make the cut now.

(Definitely harder for instate students).

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If you say there’s a family emergency and fly your daughter to your state, I don’t see how you’d risk anything.
However, what this means is that your daughter will have to deal with this distressing news all alone since mentioning it to anyone might put them in danger or might be overheard by someone interested in a quick buck at her expense.

However, rape victims, incest victims, teens, women who are homeless or in situations that make precise counting difficult will have no way of knowing they’re pregnant and by the time they realize will have no solution.
And of course a whole underground network or business will start, since illegal abortion has never meant the end of abortion, just the end of safe abortions. The connection between OOS college students and these underground networks may or may not be easy.

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Can more than one person file a lawsuit against the same entity for the same cause? i.e. in your scenario, could 6 different people file suit against the boyfriend and all win the $10K judgments?

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Who knows? But since the object of the law is to terrorize women and girls, and all who might help them to obtain an abortion, I imagine that the sky’s the limit. After all, since every person in Texas has been deputized to track down and sue anyone who helps anyone in Texas to obtain an abortion, it seems to me that the courts would allow an unlimited number of persons to file an unlimited number of suits.

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I don’t know about the illegal network. After I’d been practicing for a few years, I sought training to perform surgical abortions, in case this day ever came. And honestly, if I were in TX, I wouldn’t risk it, except for my own daughter. Too much to lose, too easy for anyone whom the recipient of the abortion tells about it, to go for the bounty. It would be one thing if someone had to go inform law enforcement, and the DA had to decide whether there was enough evidence to prosecute, let alone obtain a conviction. In this case, every adult in TX is deputized to inform on anyone, and stands the chance of significant financial remuneration for having done so. And the US Supreme Court is SILENT!

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This is not over. It will be invalidated through the case the court has accepted. Nonetheless, I’m disappointed the SC allowed this law to go into effect. It’s sad how political our SC is.

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I hope you’re right, but after this ruling, I don’t put anything past the conservative SC justices.

If you can help it, don’t send your daughters (or sons) to college in Texas.

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