Turning Neighbor Against Neighbor: How Texas Redefines Abortion Regulation Across State Lines
By: Lucy Lu
Edited by: Hailey Kim and Sophia Cheng
The Supreme Court's choice in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health (2022) to overrule Roe v. Wade (1973) is not only significant because it outlaws abortion, but also because it threatens the overall status of American women as equal and autonomous beings. The authority to regulate abortion is now left to the states, whose divergent political climates — and, by proxy, abortion laws — leave women with unequal access to care that was once broadly guaranteed. In this patchwork, interstate commerce has played a central role in accessing abortion services, and Texas is among the states where this issue is especially prevalent.
Back in 1973, Roe v. Wade found Texas’s criminalization of abortion and abortion attempts, except when necessary to save the mother’s life, unconstitutional per the right to privacy established in the 14th Amendment. However, Texas’s efforts to limit access to abortion did not stop after the ruling. As Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan cited in their Dobbs dissent, “as Texas has recently shown, a State can turn neighbor against neighbor, enlisting fellow citizens in the effort to root out anyone who tries to get an abortion, or to assist another in doing so.” Although the Roe majority had decreed that the constitutional right to privacy included the right to abortion, Texas nevertheless maintained its interest in protecting prenatal life and its longstanding, deeply rooted opposition to abortion. For years before the Dobbs decision, Texas tried to turn individuals against each other to restrict access to abortion. In the post-Roe period, these efforts have continued, exemplified by means like the Texas House Bill 7.
Texas House bill 7 was introduced on August 28, 2025, allowing private citizens to sue individuals or entities involved in the manufacture, distribution, or mailing of abortion pills to or from Texas. Shortly thereafter, on September 17, the bill was signed into law by Governor Greg Abbott, to be effective starting December 4. The signing of the bill into law has prompted extensive discussion among providers outside of Texas who, since Dobbs, have been prescribing and shipping abortion pills across state lines to women in Texas by operating. Some out-of-state providers have vowed “no anticipatory obedience” to this newly enacted law, even in the face of potential suits that can carry a minimum penalty of $100,000.
Despite the heightened liability risk involved, these organizations are not planning to exclude Texas from their services. They partially rely on protection under “shield laws,” legal protections for individuals providing healthcare assistance in states where it is legal. These shield laws protect them from civil, criminal, and professional consequences in states where the care is illegal.
The dedication of these organizations and individuals to providing equal access to abortion to all women, disregarding state boundaries, is undoubtedly notable, but concerns remain. Legal scholars have pointed out that not only is the applicability of shield laws yet to be tested in court, but the new Texas law may still “hamper or dissuade people who don’t want to be implicated, who don’t want to face the risk of liability,” thereby further limiting access to abortion for women in Texas.
Receiving abortion care across state lines already constrains women’s right to life and liberty in the post-Roe era. In Georgia resident Amber Thurman’s case, for example, Georgia’s six-week ban left Thurman with no choice but to seek a legal abortion in North Carolina. To do so, Thurman had to schedule a day off work, find a babysitter for her son, and make an excuse to borrow a car from a relative. It is important to note that women like Thurman can take these steps only because they have the financial means. For women who do not have this capacity and live in states where abortion is banned, they simply lose their access to abortion completely. Not only is out-of-state abortion logistically and financially taxing, but it can also be life-threatening if not utilized properly. Thurman ultimately chose to take abortion pills, after which she developed a rare but serious complication that required dilation and curettage (D&C) to clear her uterus. However, doctors in Georgia were hesitant to perform this necessary procedure out of fear of felony prosecution, as state law requires physicians to be certain that a patient is inarguably on the brink of death before intervening with procedures such as a D&C. If Thurman were a resident of North Carolina instead, she would have received an abortion procedure in a timely manner that could have saved her life. In such cases — where women’s state of residence and financial capacity dictate how readily, if at all, they can obtain abortion care — these women’s reliance on external circumstances erodes their agency over their bodies. Moreover, although options such as mailing abortion pills have been regarded as cheaper and more accessible alternatives to alleviate these burdens, the Texas law makes even this last resort more precarious for women in the state of Texas.
This outcome was hardly unexpected. In Justices Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan’s dissent in Dobbs, they predicted that overruling Roe v. Wade would only complicate abortion law and lead to the rise of more issues that the majority of the Court had claimed to resolve. The Justices wrote, “After this decision, some States may block women … from receiving abortion medications from out of state.” They also raised questions like, “Can a State prohibit advertising out-of-state abortions or helping women get to out-of-state providers?” and, “Can a State interfere with the mailing of drugs used for medication abortions?”
These concerns are precisely what has manifested in the recent Texas law. By permitting private suits that could result in tremendous fines against providers, pharmaceutical manufacturers, and even those who mail pills, the state of Texas is trying to promote public surveillance and instill fear and hesitation in those facilitating abortion care across state lines, creating a society short on trust and support. And with the successful adoption of this Texas bill, it is hard not to foresee the spread of the same law being adopted in other states. With access to abortion becoming more limited across the nation, we are left wondering what’s next, making the dissent’s caution in Dobbs more plausible.
There is no doubt that American women would have substantially less autonomy over their reproductive decisions if these trends were to find their way into other state legislatures. The significant social roles and equal rights that women in the United States have fought for over more than a century, from the women’s suffrage movement to Title VII, will be challenged and may even risk being lost. The clock would turn backward, diminishing women’s social and economic standing and reducing them to mere reproductive machines. This is not just about one Texas law; it is a nationwide issue in the post-Dobbs era and, even more broadly, an issue affecting half of humanity.
Notes:
Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973).
Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, 597 U.S. 215 (2022).
Texas Legislature, House, An Act relating to prohibitions on the manufacture, distribution, or mailing of abortion-inducing drugs and authorizing private civil actions, Tex. H.B. 7, 89th Leg., 2nd Called Spec. Sess., introduced August 28, 2025, https://capitol.texas.gov/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=89R&Bill=HB7.
Carter Sherman, “Abortion Pill Providers Targeted by New Texas Law Refuse ‘Anticipatory Obedience,’” The Guardian, September 18, 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/18/abortion-pill-texas-law.
Sherman, “Abortion Pill Providers Targeted by New Texas Law.”
“Shield Laws for Reproductive and Gender-Affirming Health Care: A State Law Guide,” Center on Reproductive Health, Law, and Policy, UCLA School of Law, last modified October 2025, https://law.ucla.edu/academics/centers/center-reproductive-health-law-and-policy/shield-laws-reproductive-and-gender-affirming-health-care-state-law-guide.
Sherman, “Abortion Pill Providers Targeted by New Texas Law.”
Kavitha Surana, “Abortion Bans Have Delayed Emergency Medical Care. In Georgia, Experts Say This Mother’s Death Was Preventable,” ProPublica, September 16, 2024, https://www.propublica.org/article/georgia-abortion-ban-amber-thurman-death.
Surana, “Abortion Bans Have Delayed Emergency Medical Care.”
Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, 597 U.S. 215 (2022).
Dobbs v. Jacson Women’s Health Organizations, 597 U.S. 215 (2022).
Bibliography:
Center on Reproductive Health, Law, and Policy, UCLA School of Law. Shield Laws for Reproductive and Gender-Affirming Health Care: A State Law Guide. Last modified October 2025. https://www.law.ucla.edu/academics/centers/center-reproductive-health-law-and-policy/shield-laws-reproductive-and-gender-affirming-health-care-state-law-guide.
Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, 597 U.S. 215 (2022).
Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973).
Sherman, Carter. “Abortion Pill Providers Targeted by New Texas Law Refuse ‘Anticipatory Obedience.’” The Guardian, September 18, 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/18/abortion-pill-texas-law.
Surana, Kavitha. “Abortion Bans Have Delayed Emergency Medical Care. In Georgia, Experts Say This Mother’s Death Was Preventable.” ProPublica, September 16, 2024. https://www.propublica.org/article/georgia-abortion-ban-amber-thurman-death.
Texas Legislature. House. An Act relating to prohibitions on the manufacture, distribution, or mailing of abortion-inducing drugs and authorizing private civil actions. Tex. H.B. 7. 89th Legislature, 2nd Called Special Session. Introduced August 28, 2025. https://capitol.texas.gov/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=89R&Bill=HB7.