Texas prosecutors can't target groups that fund out-of-state abortions
-judge
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[February 25, 2023]
By Brendan Pierson
(Reuters) - Local prosecutors in Texas cannot use state laws that are
more than 60 years old to prosecute organizations that help fund and
arrange travel for Texans to obtain abortions in other states where it
is legal, a federal judge ruled Friday.
U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman in Austin said that 1961 state
abortion laws, which were rendered unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme
Court's 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade establishing a nationwide right to
abortion, were not revived when the Supreme Court overturned Roe last
June.
The pre-Roe laws include criminal penalties for people who help others
obtain an abortion.
Pitman's order, which is preliminary, will remain in place while
abortion funding groups, including Fund Texas Choice, The North Texas
Equal Access Fund and The Lilith Fund for Reproductive Equity, move
forward with a lawsuit seeking to block enforcement of the laws.
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The order applies only to five individual local prosecutors who are
named as defendants in the case, though the groups have said they will
seek to expand their case to include a class of all local prosecutors in
the state. Pitman said that he could issue an order applying to a
broader group of prosecutors in the future, after they have had a chance
to appear in court.
Pitman, who was appointed to the bench by Democratic former President
Barack Obama, dismissed claims the groups had brought against Texas
Attorney General Ken Paxton, saying he did not have the authority to
enforce the pre-Roe laws.
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![](../images/022523PIX/news_o91.jpg)
Dr. Franz Theard, looks at a patient's
sonogram at his abortion clinic, Women's Reproductive Clinic of New
Mexico in Santa Teresa, U.S., January 13, 2023. REUTERS/Evelyn
Hockstein
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2015/May/02/images/ads/current/guzzardo_lda022609.png)
Paxton's office and lawyers for the abortion funds and for the local
prosecutors did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The groups filed their lawsuit not long after last June's Supreme
Court ruling, saying they risked prosecution for helping Texans
obtain legal abortions in other states. They cited statements by
Paxton and by some state lawmakers suggesting that the pre-Roe laws
criminalized funding or facilitating such abortions.
Pitman wrote that while the pre-Roe laws could be read to
criminalize helping with out-of state abortions, they were
implicitly repealed when Texas passed new abortion restrictions
after Roe.
He said the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had found as much in a
2004 decision rejecting a lawsuit seeking to overturn Roe by the
original plaintiff in Roe, Norma McCorvey, who later became an
anti-abortion activist.
(Reporting By Brendan Pierson in New York; Editing by Alexia
Garamfalvi and Aurora Ellis)
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