Texas's H.B. 7 is so broad that it can ensnare its own champions, exposing the costs of the war on abortion pills
Source: Mary Ziegler. "Texas’ anti-abortion bounty law is used against Students for Life.." October 16, 2026. slate.com
The Gist
Texas wrote its abortion-pill law so broadly that anyone can sue almost anyone, and now someone is suing a leading anti-abortion group under it. The author argues this shows how far the law reaches and how it can chill speech, and that the defenses the group would use should protect others the law targets too.
Conclusion
The lawsuit against Students for Life under H.B. 7 shows that Texas's abortion-pill bounty law is so extraordinarily broad that it can catch even its own architects and chill a wide range of speech and conduct, revealing the costs of the all-out war on abortion pills even for those leading it.
Premises
- H.B. 7 lets anyone sue those who manufacture, mail, distribute, or provide abortion pills in Texas, including out-of-state defendants, and appears to allow suits against anyone who merely intended to violate the law, whether or not an abortion occurred.
- This breadth is deliberate: it is meant to incentivize many potential plaintiffs and maximize the chance that one will come forward with a story conservatives want to tell about abortion.
- A plaintiff, Maria Puerto, is now using that breadth against Students for Life of America, a group that championed H.B. 7, citing an Instagram post in which its leader and staffers said they were 'ordering abortion pills undercover.'
- Whatever the suit's outcome, the defendants' likely defenses (political speech protected by the First Amendment, the difficulty of punishing mere intent, standing, and other constitutional objections to the law's structure) apply equally to other people who aid abortion seekers.
- The suit also spotlights the common, non-emergency harms of denied abortions (poverty, debt, lost work and schooling, health troubles, as documented in the Turnaway Study), which makes it a powerful story about life after Roe.
Assumptions
- That the fact a suit can be brought at all against an anti-abortion group demonstrates the law's overbreadth, regardless of whether it succeeds.
- That the Instagram post, though ambiguous, plausibly falls within the law's reach as written.
- That defenses Students for Life invokes (First Amendment, intent-only liability) would be principled and not merely tactical, so that consistency demands extending them to other defendants.
- That broad laws chill speech and conduct in practice, not just in theory.
- That a single lawsuit is a meaningful indicator of the law's general design and effects.
- That the law's champions would regard being targeted themselves as a real cost or reason to reconsider.