By Gabriella Borter
(Reuters) – A Texas man has filed a wrongful death lawsuit accusing three women of helping his ex-wife get abortion pills. .
Plaintiff Marcus Silva filed suit Thursday in Galveston County, Texas, alleging three Texas women are liable for wrongful death because they helped his ex-wife get abortion pills to terminate a pregnancy in July 2022. The civil lawsuit is seeking $1 million in damages against each woman.
Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, repealing federal abortion rights, Texas has become one of about a dozen states to enforce a total ban on abortion. It is illegal to “assist or encourage” abortions in Texas, which defendants Jackie Noyola, Amy Carpenter and Aracely Garcia did according to the lawsuit.
The defendants were not immediately available for comment.
“Defendants Noyola, Carpenter and Garcia all knew they were aiding or abetting a self-administered abortion, which is a tort and a criminal act of murder under Texas law,” the lawsuit argued.
Brittni Silva, who divorced her husband in February according to the lawsuit, is not a defendant and is exempt from criminal or civil liability under state law.
Photos of text messages between Brittni Silva, Noyola and Carpenter, included as exhibits with the court documents, show the women discussing Silva’s pregnancy and her desire to get abortion pills in Texas.
“Not having to travel would make things so much easier,” Silva wrote, according to the screenshots.
Noyola and Carpenter provide links to websites where people can order the two-pill regimen, and both offered to let Silva perform her abortion herself at their home, the screenshots of the text messages show.
The lawsuit alleges that Garcia, the third defendant, facilitated the delivery of the pills to Houston.
Marcus Silva is represented by attorneys Briscoe Cain, a Republican member of the Texas House of Representatives, and Jonathan Mitchell, who is credited with being the architect of Texas’ six-week ban that took effect in September 2021. That law banned abortion from six weeks of pregnancy, and it introduced a new enforcement mechanism; it invited citizens to bring civil suits against anyone they believed had broken the law by assisting, urging, or having an abortion after that point, for damages in excess of $10,000.
A status hearing in the case is scheduled for June 8.
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(Reporting by Gabriella Borter; editing by Lisa Shumaker)
