Article By Steven Ertelt
The state of Texas has aggressively fought to uphold the integrity of its abortion ban in court by ensuring that abortionists and abortion companies in other states don’t flood Texas with illegal abortion pills.
Thanks to the Tuesday mid-term election, Texas will be flooded with the dangerous abortion drugs that kill babies and injure thousands of women.
Texas Attorney General-elect Nathan Johnson said he will no longer pursue lawsuits against out-of-state abortionists who mail chemical abortion drugs into the state, a shift that pro-life leaders warn will allow abortion pills to flood Texas unchecked.
Johnson, a Democrat who won election last week and will take office in January, told KXAN that Texas abortion laws “are bad, but I’m not going to be a legislator. I’m going to be the attorney general.”
He said he would “cease the practice” used by outgoing Attorney General Ken Paxton of challenging those who abuse Texas law.
Paxton had filed multiple suits to enforce Texas pro-life statutes against those shipping abortion-inducing drugs into the state. In February, he sued Aid Access over what his office called an “international abortion-by-mail enterprise that illegally ships abortion-inducing drugs into Texas in open defiance of state law.” Earlier, he sued a Delaware-based abortion pill seller and related entities for distributing the drugs to Texans in violation of the Human Life Protection Act.
Texas law bans abortion except in limited medical emergencies and imposes civil penalties of up to $100,000 under the Texas Woman and Child Protection Act for production and distribution of chemical abortion pills.
Joe Pojman, president of Texans for Life, said Johnson misunderstands the law and that anyone who illegally sends abortion-inducing pills into Texas should be sued by the attorney general, comparing it to mailing illegal narcotics.
Texas Right to Life President John Seago said withdrawing from such cases would leave victims exposed, citing instances in which men secretly administered abortion drugs to pregnant women, including a 2024 case in which Mason Herring pleaded guilty to slipping the drugs into his wife’s drinks.
Seago said partner states could keep other challenges against the FDA moving even if Texas withdraws, but private lawsuits under the Heartbeat Act and related statutes remain available.
Separately, residents of Seminole in Gaines County approved an ordinance outlawing abortion, abortion trafficking, chemical abortion pills and the disposition of fetal remains within the city, making it the 84th Texas municipality to declare itself a Sanctuary City for the Unborn.
The measure includes private civil enforcement from the point of conception, similar to the statewide Heartbeat Act.
A federal case filed by Texas and Florida attorneys general seeking to revoke nationwide approval of the abortion drug mifepristone was paused by a judge in August until at least December, at the FDA’s request while it conducts a safety review.
Johnson has said he will review pending lawsuits filed under Paxton and the expectation is that he will withdraw the lawsuits – allowing more babies to be killed and more women injured.
Texas pro-life groups said they plan to continue defending existing protections, including funding for the Thriving Texas Families alternatives-to-abortion program.
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