They Helped Pass a Merciless Abortion Ban—Then Had the Gall to Break It
Why a Texas mother is suing Students For Life
By Nona Willis Aronowitz
On October 13, Maria Puerto, a Texas mother of two, filed a lawsuit against Students for Life. To grasp why this suit is so significant, it helps to understand Texas’s unique role in pioneering particularly barbaric anti-abortion laws…and the organizations that have fiercely supported those laws.
First, about Texas: Back in 2021, Texas passed a then-shocking law that banned abortions after six weeks—before many people even know they’re pregnant. Since Roe v. Wade was still in effect, which means the state couldn’t enforce abortion bans, this law came up with a novel way to go after abortions: It allowed any member of the public, even complete strangers, to sue any physician who performs or aids and abets an illegal abortion in Texas for at least $10,000 in damages.
It was an early show of cruelty, a preview of what a post-Dobbs landscape would look like. And Texas hasn’t let up since. After Roe fell, the state’s trigger law—a total abortion ban regardless of gestation—snapped into effect. Then, last year, Texas passed a law that specifically targets mailing abortion medication. While it remains legal for Texans to order pills for themselves, that legislation, HB 7, allows anyone to file a lawsuit against someone who provides or distributes abortion pills in Texas for at least $100,000.
Texas has proven itself as the “testing ground for the most anti-democratic, most lawless, most intentionally vague abortion laws,” says Molly Duane, litigation director for Amplify Legal, the litigation arm of Abortion in America, and Maria Puerto’s lawyer.
Yet since these laws have passed, the deluge of lawsuits Texas lawmakers were hoping for never came. Aside from a handful of suits, “Texans don’t go after their neighbors when they desperately need healthcare,” Duane says. “These are vigilante-style laws that try to turn people against each other for financial gain and it’s appalling.” But as long as these laws are on the books, she says, “the people who really need the money should be getting it.”
Enter her client, Maria Puerto, who was forced to give birth twice under Texas’s abortion bans.
Maria is suing Students For Life, an anti-abortion organization that aggressively lobbied for the state’s 2025 law targeting abortion pills—then broke it. In March 2026, the organization’s president posted on Instagram a picture of herself and other members of the organization announcing they were “ordering abortion pills undercover” next to what appears to be Space Center Houston (so, definitely in Texas). The post ominously told her followers to “stay tuned.”
“They lobbied for this law,” Duane says, “and then they had the gall to break it and brag about it publicly.” Maria, Duane says, feels like “this behavior mocks people like her”—people who are trapped by Texas’s restrictive abortion bans. “These laws have already killed too many Texans. It’s making fun of something that’s deadly serious.”
It remains to be seen how Students For Life will respond to the lawsuit. Meanwhile, Maria is focused on providing for her family. She’s suing Students For Life for $459,782, the average cost of raising two children from birth to age 18 in Texas.