AUSTIN - Private individuals who have the authority to enforce Texas' anti-abortion laws can't be sued by pro-choice groups, a federal judge has ruled.
Judge Robert Pitman on Oct. 29 granted the motion to dismiss filed by Texas citizens who have expressed an interest in enforcing Senate Bill 8, which effectively stops abortions after six weeks.
Texas' pro-life laws have led to plenty of litigation, and Senate Bill 8 tried to work around the courts by not giving the State the power to enforce it. Instead, private individuals could sue health care providers who perform abortions.
Attorney General Ken Paxton and district attorneys originally faced claims in Fund Texas Choice's lawsuit, and Pitman's recent ruling addresses the plaintiffs' standing to sue so-called S.B. 8 defendants.
They are a group of five people who have expressed interest in suing through discovery requests or threats of litigation. One such defendant has filed four Rule 202 petitions in state court and in July 2022 served a litigation-hold letter requiring documents pertaining to abortions be preserved.
That individual argues the letter was sent solely to preserve evidence for potential litigation and not to threaten suit. Another intervened in the federal government's case against Texas to preserve her right to sue but now says she has no interest in doing so.
It all culminated in Pitman's ruling, which says Fund Texas Choice and The Lilith Fund have failed to show an ongoing or impending future injury.
The litigation-hold letter doesn't name those plaintiffs as targets of possible suit, Pitman said.
"Plaintiffs are not asking the Court to enjoin (Shannon) Thomason from investigating or suing Alan Braid, Andrea Gallegos, Amy Hagstrom Miller and Marva Sadler - only that the Court enjoin Thomason from suing Plaintiffs," Pitman wrote.
"Nor do Plaintiffs ask the Court to revoke the litigation-hold letter or restrain Thomason's counsel from enforcing it. Because Thomason will be free to pursue his Rule 202 petition regardless, Plaintiffs will remain under the obligations described in the letter no matter what relief the Court ultimately grants.
"Plaintiffs' injury is therefore not redressable."
The original complaint alleged Paxton and district attorneys are attempting to destroy a "pregnant person's right to self-determination and reproductive healthcare." Texas citizens seeking abortions have been forced to do that out-of-state, and some groups have funded their costs.
Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court decided not to hear arguments in a case challenging an injunction that prevents the federal government from enforcing abortion guidance deemed unlawful.
That guidance aimed to compel medical providers to perform abortions in violation of state law under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, Paxton said.
"This is a major victory at SCOTUS that will protect Texas medical providers from being forced to violate State law," Paxton said.
"No Texas doctor should be forced to violate his or her conscience or the law just to do their job. We successfully sued and stopped the Biden-Harris Administration’s backdoor attempt to overrule State abortion laws."