A nonprofit organization opened a “pop-up abortion information store” in Texas to assist women with obtaining abortion pills, an activity enabled by permits from local officials despite a purported ban on distributing the substances in the state.
Mayday, which enables women across the nation to obtain the substances through “international community networks and online pill providers,” temporarily opened the store in Bastrop, Texas, a small town southeast of Austin, at the end of last week. Individuals who solicited the store received information on access to “birth control, emergency contraception, and abortion pills wherever they reside,” according to a press release from the entity.
“Since the fall of Roe, millions of pregnant people have been left without access to the abortion care they need and live in fear about accessing abortion pills online,” Mayday Executive Director Jennifer Lincoln remarked in the press release. “Regardless of what any judge in any state does, Mayday will never stop spreading the message that abortion pills are safe and accessible, no matter where you live.”
Mayday added on social media that residents of Texas are permitted to “show others how” they can obtain abortion pills. Visitors were indeed enabled to download posters about abortion pill access to display in their hometowns or on college campuses such that pregnant women could more easily acquire the substances.
The majority of abortions in the United States, even before the Supreme Court decided to overturn Roe v. Wade last summer, were executed through self-managed abortions, according to data from the Guttmacher Institute. The procedure involves a mother taking a series of two pills, one which causes the death of her baby and another which induces a premature delivery.
Current law in Texas, which bans manufacturers and physicians from distributing abortion pills through the mail, nevertheless states that a woman “on whom a drug-induced abortion” is performed cannot be held “criminally liable for the violation.” Foundation to Abolish Abortion President Bradley Pierce, a constitutional attorney who resides in Texas, said in comments to The Sentinel that some 19,000 children are murdered every year in the state through self-managed abortions.
“From conception until birth, abortion in Texas is not illegal for the mother who performs or procures it. The Texas heartbeat bill, trigger bill, chemical abortion bill, and Texas homicide law all have explicit provisions stating that they do not apply to the mothers involved,” he remarked. “Mothers who visit this Mayday site, order these pills, and knowingly and willfully kill their babies are completely immune from prosecution.”
The Sentinel also contacted the office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to inquire about the legality of the Mayday abortion store. This article will be updated with any response.
Mayday meanwhile told The Sentinel that their activities were legal in the state of Texas and that the entity obtained permits from officials in Bastrop for the signage displays. Mayday clarified that they did not allow visitors inside the location due to local regulations but permitted them to view signs on exterior windows and to look at other information posted inside the store.
“Mayday wanted to use free speech to demonstrate that anyone can still talk about abortion using our First Amendment rights. Regardless of what a party or judges think, people can still access abortion pills by mail, either via international prescribers, community networks, online providers, or via mail forwarding,” Lincoln said. “We do make it clear we are not giving medical or legal advice and have resources where people can access that kind of advice on our website.”
Other conservative states, many of which have heavily regulated surgical abortion centers after the overturn of Roe v. Wade, forbid officials from prosecuting mothers for the murder of their preborn children, even if the mothers willfully choose to order the pills without assistance or coercion from any other party. Oklahoma, for example, expressly bans the “charging or conviction of a woman with any criminal offense in the death of her own unborn child,” while Tennessee makes explicit that “the pregnant woman upon whom an abortion is performed or attempted” cannot be subjected to “criminal conviction or penalty.”
Conservative news outlets have nevertheless insisted that abortion is now banned in more than a dozen states. Life News, for instance, claimed on social media in an interaction about the Mayday store that abortion pills are illegal in Texas.
