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Anti-abortion leaders have been willing to experiment with novel—and sweeping—penalties to shut down access to abortion. But a new lawsuit shows that these laws are so broad that even their architects might get caught in the crossfire.
In a major suit filed this week, a 26-year-old Texas woman using the pseudonym Maria Puerto is suing under H.B. 7, a law passed in Texas last year. H.B. 7 allows anyone (literally) to sue those who violate or intend to violate the statute’s prohibition on manufacturing, mailing, transporting, distributing, or providing abortion pills. Puerto argues that pro-life activists from Students for Life of America, one of the organizations that championed H.B. 7, are actually guilty of violating it.
The lawsuit comes in the run-up to the 2026 midterm, where abortion has not played a particularly important role. Republicans continue to downplay abortion—with reason, given what most polls say about Americans’ attitudes—but Democrats are largely focusing on other issues too.
Video from Slate
That abortion doesn’t appear to be a central political issue is likely temporary. A number of major federal cases are looming in 2027, any of which could impose limits on abortion that Americans have never experienced since the reversal of Roe v. Wade. The most likely target is telehealth access to abortion. With lawsuits, Environmental Protection Agency complaints, and extradition requests, abortion opponents have taken a no-holds-barred approach to shutting down telehealth access.
H.B. 7 is a central piece of that strategy. The law is a bounty-hunting bill on steroids: It allows anyone to sue those who manufacture, distribute, mail, or provide abortion pills in Texas, even if the defendant is based in a state where abortion is constitutionally protected. And it seems to allow for a lawsuit against anyone who even intended to violate the law, regardless of whether an abortion took place.
The breadth of the law is key to its design: It is meant to incentivize a large group of potential plaintiffs to file suit,and maximize the chances that a plaintiff will come forward with the kind of story that conservatives want to tell about abortion in America.
But the very breadth of the law is what Puerto’s suit weaponizes. The suit focuses on a Instagram post from March 2026 featuring Students for Life leader Kristan Hawkins and two staffers. Text on the post reads: “Guess what we are doing? Ordering abortion pills undercover? Yep. Stay tuned.”
It’s not clear whether Hawkins or the other defendants received the pills. It’s also a little fuzzy what drove the post. Students for Life may have been engineering their own H.B. 7 suit by tricking a doctor into violating the law—going “undercover” to gin up litigation under H.B. 7. The post may also have been designed to gather evidence about the ease with which anyone—including abusers—can purchase abortion pills. It’s also possible that the post was just a post, and that no pills were ever ordered.
Whatever the case, the post has now led to a supremely ironic outcome: One of the first major cases under H.B. 7 is against a group that opposes abortion.
It’s not clear how the suit will turn out. There are hurdles for Puerto. For starters, the plaintiff will need proof that the Students for Life leaders actually obtained or intended to obtain the pills. The activists may argue that the post was not in earnest, and that no one involved ever seriously intended to bring pills into Texas.
Second, Students for Life may stress that the case targets their political speech about abortion—which is protected under the First Amendment—rather than the distribution of pills. Students for Life may even challenge whether Puerto has standing to sue, even though H.B. 7 applies an extremely liberal standard on the subject. And there are a number of other constitutional concerns scholars have raised about the structure of H.B. 7. Students for Life could raise those too, even if doing so would undermine the law more broadly.
Whatever happens, the lawsuit will still tell a powerful story. Puerto has written about how she got pregnant in 2022 and had no clear way to leave the state for an abortion, especially since she was helping to take care of her ailing mother. Severe morning sickness forced her to leave school and cost her a job. Puerto has framed the suit as a way of fighting back against laws that she feels have compromised the future she wanted to give herself and her children. She is seeking $459,782 in her suit, the amount she says it will cost to raise her two children (Puerto is only authorized under the law to keep $10,000; the rest will go to charity).
Many of the most important cases litigated since the fall of Roe have involved patients facing death or medical emergencies. Puerto focuses on a more common scenario: As documented in “The Turnaway Study,” people who seek and are denied abortions are likely to struggle with poverty, debt, underemployment, and troubles with physical and mental health.
Puerto’s essay also reflects the complexity of an experience like hers. She expresses profound love for the two children she has while regretting that she was forced to become a mother before she could give those children the life she believed they deserved. This kind of case is a reminder of what many will experience in the aftermath of Roe’s demise. That the case spotlights this kind of story at all is important in its own right.
Puerto’s suit tells an equally powerful story about laws like H.B. 7. The fact that a suit like this can even be brought against a leading anti-abortion group shows how extraordinarily broad this kind of bounty law is, and how it can chill a range of speech and conduct. If Students for Life raises concerns about freedom of speech—or the challenges of punishing someone simply for intending to violate a law—those same concerns should apply to other defendants aiding abortion seekers.
After the midterm, there is reason to think that new national limits on abortion may be coming. But whatever happens after November, suits like one offer an important lesson about the costs of the all-out war on abortion pills, even for those leading it.