By: Natalie Kitroeff

Legal experts say such laws may be challenged after the F.D.A. decision, but for now, these state measures could discourage American doctors from sending pills to parts of the country with restrictive regulations.

“For the first time, Texas does have a way to protect women, through our criminal law, from people bringing dangerous abortion pills,” said Joe Pojman, executive director of the Texas Alliance for Life, an organization that helped craft the measure. “We’ll have to wait to see how well it is enforced in the coming months.”

Anti-abortion groups acknowledge that criminally punishing activists who distribute the pills, especially if they are from Mexico, may prove difficult. They would have to be caught and arrested in Texas, or extradited, experts say.

By: JAMES BARRAGÁN AND CASSANDRA POLLOCK

Still, even some groups aligned with the anti-abortion movement say they have concerns about the enforcement mechanism in the state’s law. Joe Pojman, executive director for Texas Alliance for Life, said the group — which is “very pleased with the effect of the law” — does have concerns that its enforcement mechanism could be used in future state laws that could involve the First Amendment.

“Because some state might try to pass a law that … might create a right for private citizens to sue anyone who talks to a woman entering an abortion facility,” he said. “That’s a frightening prospect to us. I don’t know of any state that’s considering it. But it seems like that would be possible if this type of citizen enforcement is allowed to continue.”

By: ELEANOR DEARMAN

“SB 8 represents an attempt by the Legislature to protect unborn babies from abortion even before Roe is overturned,” said Joe Pojman, Texas Alliance for Life’s executive director. “For now, that law remains in effect. Regardless of whether the courts allow that law to continue, we hope the Supreme Court will reverse the terrible Roe v. Wade precedent so states can completely protect unborn babies from the tragedy of abortion.”

By: Emily Caldwell and BeLynn Hollers

In a statement by Texas Alliance for Life, the organization notes that “neither the United States Supreme Court nor the state district court considered the constitutionality of a pre-viability abortion ban, only the procedural questions related to the citizen enforcement of SB 8.”

“Regardless of whether the courts allow that law to continue, we hope the Supreme Court will reverse the terrible Roe v. Wade precedent so states can completely protect unborn babies from the tragedy of abortion. That could happen by next June when the Court rules on the Dobbs case, whose oral arguments they heard last week,” executive director Joe Pojman said.

By: Melanie Torre

Meanwhile, opponents of abortion access are hoping to achieve the opposite.

“We’re putting a lot of hope in an entirely separate law and a separate court case,” said Joe Pojman, executive director of Texas Alliance for Life. Pojman is talking about is Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization—another case before the U.S. Supreme Court challenging a Mississippi law banning abortion at 15 weeks.

“If they rule to completely overturn Roe v. Wade, or partly overturn it, Texas has another law that the legislature passed and the governor signed last spring,” said Pojman.

Texas’s Human Life Protection Act would be triggered into effect in the event Roe v. Wade is overturned. The act would close the six-week window currently part of the state’s SB 8 and essentially outlaw any abortion procedure.