Austin, TX – Senator Sarah Eckhardt and Representative Lulu Flores filed the Protect Survivors Healthcare Decisions Act (SB 2961) (HB 5237) last week in response to a Washington Post report of an abuser recruitment campaign endorsed by Ken Paxton to enforce Texas’ dangerous and unpopular abortion bans. 

BACKGROUND:  Texas Right to Life, with the support of Ken Paxton, has launched a campaign to recruit men to report their partners abortion in order to enforce Texas’ dangerous and unpopular abortion ban. Outing a partner’s healthcare information without their consent is a violation of privacy and reproductive coercion. According to the Washington Post, “the strategy propelled a first-of-its-kind lawsuit filed last month by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that cited firsthand information from an unnamed “biological father” to accuse a New York doctor of illegally providing abortion pills to a woman in the Dallas area, according to two people familiar with the case’s origins.”

What the Protect Survivors’ Healthcare Decisions Act Does:

• PROHIBITS abusers from weaponizing private healthcare decisions against their partners and their support network.
• PROTECTS survivors’ privacy and their healthcare decisions being used against them. 
• CONTINUES more than 20 years of Texas law that abortion can not make the basis for a wrongful death claim.

Representative Lulu Flores (HD-51) said:

“The state’s highest legal office being used to facilitate reproductive coercion by recruiting abusive men to out their partners’ private healthcare decisions is simply incomprehensible and should alarm us all. Any law that requires survivors’ private healthcare decisions to be weaponized against them in order to be enforced is morally bankrupt. That’s why we have introduced the Protect Survivors’ Healthcare Act to protect survivors’ healthcare decisions and continue more than 20 years of Texas law.” 

Senator Sarah Eckhardt (SD-14) said: 

“Texas’ abortion bans threaten our collective public health and corrupts our criminal justice system by placing abusers in the position of enforcing the law. If the only way to enforce abortion bans is by recruiting abusers to sue, then they should not exist. The Protect Survivors Healthcare Act reverses course on this dangerous path, making clear that Texas is a state that cares about survivors’ and their rights and is not a safe harbor for abuse. The filing of the Protect Survivors Healthcare Act is a declaration of that belief. I hope my colleagues across the aisle are ready to stand up for survivors and protect their right to privacy and healthcare.”

Avow Texas Policy Director Yaneth Flores said: 

“Architects of Texas’ abortion ban have been unsuccessful pursuing the most extreme components of Texas abortion bans so they are shifting their strategy by recruiting the only demographic that is even willing to pursue such vile cases – abusive partners. That’s not a consequence of these cruel bans, that’s been a strategy all along. Every abortion ban is a threat to public health and if the only way to enforce such law is by recruiting abusive partners it means your law is not only unethical, but inhumane. We hope that our bill will provide protection to survivors who are being targeted by Ken Paxton’s cruel agenda. The question remains, why is Ken Paxton using taxpayer resources and the attorney general’s office to pursue an abortion law enforcement operation?”

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