“Jackie your help means the world to me,” Ms. Silva’s friends helped her date her pregnancy, which was early in the first trimester, and figure out how to get pills to terminate it.

(The third woman he sued, who he says supplied the abortion pills to his wife, has not yet responded in court and could not be reached for comment.)Īccording to the texts, Ms. Silva’s complaint is based on a series of photos he took of texts between Ms. Mitchell’s argument succeeds, it would be a legal victory for the concept of fetal personhood - a goal of many abortion opponents. The suit asserts that under that state law, the rights of a fetus are equivalent to those of an adult. Mitchell’s argument in this case uses the state’s wrongful death statute to seek damages on behalf of Mr. Mitchell did not respond to requests for comment. He was the architect of the Texas law, passed in 2021, which led clinics in the state to stop providing abortions after six weeks, by deputizing private citizens to enforce the law by suing for cash judgments of $10,000 per procedure. Silva’s lawyer, Jonathan Mitchell, a former solicitor general of Texas, has advocated using private lawsuits to deter abortion. “They believed strongly that they were helping a friend at a time of dire need.” “They’re being thrust into the public arena, with their financial well-being at risk,” he said.

Carpenter, the experience of being sued has been difficult, said their lawyer, Rusty Hardin. In Nebraska, prosecutors used Facebook messages between a mother and daughter to bring charges against them after the daughter’s abortion.įor Ms. Silva’s ex-wife, said he searched her phone without her consent and read their private messages.Ībortion-rights advocates have raised the alarm over how private information might be used in both civil and criminal cases against people who have abortions, and those who help them. Carpenter, who are close friends of Brittni Silva, Mr. Silva for invasion of privacy in addition to offering a number of defenses to his claims. This week, two of the women, Jackie Noyola and Amy Carpenter, filed their response in court: They are countersuing Mr.

Both sides view it as a test case aimed at discouraging anyone from helping women access abortion in states where the procedure is now banned or severely restricted.

In the post-Roe era, the suit horrified abortion-rights advocates and galvanized opponents. The suit alleged that the termination of the pregnancy qualified as wrongful death under state law, and he presented text messages between his ex-wife and the women as evidence. In March, a Texas man, Marcus Silva, sued three women for $1 million each after they helped his ex-wife obtain an abortion last summer using pills.

Charged by Emily Bazelon