Three Texas women are being sued for wrongful death after they allegedly helped a friend get abortion medication.

A Texas man is suing three women he claims helped his ex-wife terminate a pregnancy under state wrongful death law. This is the first such case since the state’s near-total ban on abortion last summer.

Marcus Silva is represented by Jonathan Mitchell, former Solicitor General of Texas and author of the state ban on abortion after approximately six weeks of pregnancy, and Rep. Briscoe Kane, R-Deer Park. The lawsuit was filed in the state court of Galveston County, where Silva lives.

Silva alleges that his now ex-wife found out she was pregnant in July 2022, a month after Roe v. Wade was dropped, and conspired with two friends to illegally obtain abortion-inducing drugs and terminate the pregnancy.

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The friends corresponded with the woman, sending her information about accessing help, an international group that provides abortion-inducing drugs, by mail, the lawsuit alleges. The text messages reveal that instead they found a way to get the cure in Houston, where two women lived.

The lawsuit alleges that a third woman delivered the medication, and text messages indicate that the wife had an abortion on her own at home.

Respondents could not be contacted for comment. Silva and his wife divorced in February and have two daughters, the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit relies heavily on screenshots from the ex-wife’s group chat with two friends who were apparently eager to help her end the pregnancy. Her friends expressed concern that Silva, her ex-husband, would “get into your head.”

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“I know he’s using it against me anyway,” the pregnant woman said, according to text messages attached to the complaint. “If I had told him before that I was not like that, he would have taken advantage of this as [a way to] try to stay with me. And after the fact, I know he will try to act like he has some sort of right to decide.”

“Delete all conversations from today,” one of the women later told her. “You don’t want him to look it up.”

The lawsuit alleges that assisted self-abortion qualifies as murder under state law, allowing Silva to sue under wrongful death law. The women were not prosecuted. Mitchell and Kane also intend to name the abortion pill maker as a defendant once it is identified.

“Anyone who distributes or manufactures abortion pills will be forgotten,” Kane said in a statement.

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Texas abortion laws expressly exempt pregnant women from prosecution; ex-wife does not appear as a defendant.

Silva is asking Judge Galveston to award him more than $1 million in damages and to ban the defendants from distributing abortion pills in Texas.

Jolie McCullough contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared in Texas Tribune.

Texas Tribune is a non-profit, non-partisan media organization that informs and engages with Texans about public policy, politics, government, and nationwide issues.

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