By Doha Madani -
NBC News
A Texas man is suing three of his ex-wife's friends, alleging that they helped her obtain medication to terminate her pregnancy in violation of state law, following the Supreme Court ruling that overturned the decision known as Roe v.
Wade and ended the federal right to abortion.
Marcus Silva filed a death and conspiracy lawsuit in Galveston County, Texas, on Thursday against the three women.
The lawsuit includes screenshots of messages to support Silva's claim that they seek to prove that they coordinated to obtain the pills and conceal their actions.
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The ex-wife is exempt from liability in the case under Texas law and is not named as one of the defendants.
NBC News, the sister network of Noticias Telemundo, decided not to reveal the names of the women or that of Silva's ex-wife.
Silva and his wife divorced in February but were still married when she became pregnant in July of the previous year.
It was not clear from Silva's lawsuit why her ex-wife decided to end her pregnancy, but judging from the text messages, the woman had already planned to call it quits.
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“I know he is going to use it against me either way,” the woman wrote to her friends, according to a text message included in the lawsuit.
"If I tell him before, what I'm not going to do, he would use it [as an avenue] to try to be with me."
Text messages are undated.
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Some states have passed anti-abortion laws that took effect after the Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v.
Jackson Women's Health, on January 24, 2022, which ended the constitutional right to abortion.
The women also discussed the possibility of traveling out of state to perform the abortion.
At that point, Silva's ex-wife had talked to someone who could refer her to "some places in New Mexico and Colorado."
Mifepristone (Mifeprex) is one of two drugs used to cause a termination of pregnancy.Getty Images
One woman shared a link to a website and screenshots with information on abortion-terminating pills, stressing that it could be done safely at home, according to the texts.
The person shared messages from an unidentified person, noting that the pills were still available in the state but that the legality of ordering them online and having them shipped was "shady."
Silva's ex-wife told the group that she was willing to take the pills, according to the messages.
She then commented to her friends that her help "hers meant the world" to her.
"I'm so lucky to have them," she wrote.
"Really".
The woman tried to calculate how many weeks pregnant she was, based on her last period and the time she ovulated, leading her to conclude that she was five or six weeks old, the text messages revealed.
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Concluding that she was within the time frame to take the pill safely, the woman chose a day to start the process, according to the exchange of messages.
"Delete all conversations for today," one of the friends later wrote.
The pill mifepristone was approved by the Food and Drug Administration [FDA, for its name in English] more than 20 years ago to end pregnancy up to 10 weeks.
Taken with a second medication, misoprostol, that procedure has proven to be safe and effective.
Texas' law banning abortion after six weeks went into effect on September 1, 2022. After that date, orders for abortion pills through organizations like Aid Access skyrocketed, NBC News reported last week. anus.
Mitzi Rivas, left, hugs her daughter Maya Iribarren during an abortion rights protest in San Francisco, following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v.
Wade, on Friday, June 24, 2022. Josie Lepe / AP
The FDA said it would continue to allow abortion pills to be sent through the mail, but Texas passed a law in December that prohibits health professionals from prescribing them to patients.
Last month, an anti-abortion group filed a lawsuit in Texas to ban mifepristone completely.
The organization ensures that the government does not correctly assess the safety of this drug and should not have made it accessible through telemedicine during the Covid pandemic.
The President's Administration, Joe Biden, has fought and presented a legal response in which he ensures that the benefits of mifepristone are greater than its risks.
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The government has also ensured that the pill is not only safe, but that "the public interest would be seriously damaged" if mifepristone were taken off the market.
Walgreens pharmacies announced earlier this month that they would not sell abortion pills in 20 states after their attorney generals sent letters to the chain threatening legal action.
Walgreens indicated that it responded to the attorney generals individually and informed that they would not sell the pills – by mail order or in their stores – in those states.
Some of those states, including Texas, have passed restrictions on the drug, but others, like Florida, still allow its sale.
