It was a cold, blustery weekend in February when Neesha Davé opened the door to her Austin, Texas, home and found a process server standing on her front step. She felt sympathy for the woman waiting in the morning wind and rain, even after she awkwardly handed Davé a 30-page document they both knew was bad news. For months, Davé had prepared for the possibility that this day might come. She read through the document, then scanned each page with her phone, and sent it to her lawyers.
The document was a request to depose Davé because, as the deputy director of Lilith Fund, she helps pregnant people in Texas obtain abortions. Beginning on September 1, 2021, abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy were banned in Texas under a law known as Senate Bill 8, or SB 8. At the time, abortions in roughly the first half of pregnancy were a constitutionally protected right under Roe v. Wade. SB 8 sought to outflank Roe by placing the task of enforcing its ban on individuals rather than the state of Texas. Under the new law, any individual can sue anyone they suspect of helping a pregnant person get an abortion in Texas after six weeks, for a minimum of $10,000 in damages. This vigilante scheme was meant to stop SB 8 from being overturned by courts, despite its blatant violation of Roe; if the state can’t enforce its abortion ban, the law’s proponents argue, then a court can’t order them not to enforce it, either.
When the Supreme Court overturned Roe on June 24, a Texas abortion ban that originated in the 1850s, invalidated by Roe for nearly 50 years, roared back to life. Under this frontier-era statute, both performing an abortion and helping a pregnant person obtain one is illegal. On August 25, a second ban enacted last year took effect, with draconian punishments for abortion providers. This law bans all abortions except to save the life of the pregnant person. Doctors who violate the ban could be punished with life in prison and would be subject to a civil fine of no less than $100,000. Texas hospitals and doctors are left to guess how dangerous a pregnancy has become and can only intervene just before it is too late—or risk the punitive whirlwind.
SB 8 helps enforce this post- dystopia: It allows vigilantes to piggyback on any cases brought under the bans and win civil suits with ample bounties. Vigilantes can also
