Good.
A Texas man who sued three women for allegedly helping his ex-wife obtain a medication abortion, one of the first and most explosive lawsuits after Texas began banning the procedure, has dropped his claims, according to defendants.
The wrongful death case, which had the potential to open up new avenues to target those accused of “aiding or abetting” abortions, was set for trial on Monday in Galveston County.
Elizabeth Myers, who represented defendants Jackie Noyola and Amy Carpenter, declined to specify the terms of the dismissal. Noyola and Carpenter, in their first public statements on the case in two years, called the claims “meritless” and said they had simply been trying to help free their friend from an abusive relationship.
“While we are grateful that this fraudulent case is finally over, we are angry for ourselves and others who have been terrorized for the simple act of supporting a friend who is facing abuse,” Noyola said. “No one should ever have to fear punishment, criminalization, or a lengthy court battle for helping someone they care about.”
[…]
In the complaint, Silva said he learned that his ex-wife terminated the pregnancy after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and Texas’ abortion ban went into effect. Silva accused the three women of helping her obtain abortion pills and convincing her to conceal their “murderous actions” from him.
Silva and his wife divorced in February 2023 and have two other children, according to the suit. He was seeking more than $1 million in damages. The suit was not filed under Senate Bill 8, Mitchell’s brainchild, which allows private citizens to sue those who aid and abet an abortion for at least $10,000, but rather alleged a wrongful death of his child.
Two of the women targeted by the lawsuit later countersued Silva, claiming he was a “serial emotional abuser” who was seeking revenge on his ex-wife’s friends for helping her escape a toxic relationship. They claimed Silva broke the law by searching the ex-wife’s phone without her consent and accessing her text messages with them.
They argued Silva knew about the abortion from those messages and from finding an abortion pill when secretly rifling through her purse but did not bring it up to her until two weeks later.
“He wasn’t interested in stopping her from terminating a possible pregnancy,” their lawyers wrote in the filing. “Instead, he wanted to obtain evidence he could use against her if she refused to stay under his control, which is precisely what he tried to do.”
They were seeking unspecified damages and legal fees.
Silva’s ex-wife, who was not a defendant in the case, described the suit in court filings as the “latest abusive tactic in a long line of steps he has taken to harass and control” her. She alleged that he was using the suit to extort her to sleep with him and perform his household chores despite their divorce.
She said Silva had also threatened to post a sex video of her on her employer’s website and send it to her family and friends, a tactic often referred to as “revenge pornography,” illegal in most states including Texas. Transcripts of audio recordings of their conversations are detailed in the suit.
Myers had argued this “improper purpose” was enough reason to dismiss the suit.
Silva suffered a major setback in the case in June when the Texas Supreme Court left in place a state appeals court ruling that allowed the ex-wife to withhold information and documents requested by his attorneys regarding the alleged abortion. The appeals court concluded that her compliance with such an order could imperil her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
In a concurring opinion, Justices Jimmy Blacklock and Justice Devine, two of the all-Republican court’s most conservative judges, went out of their way to mention in a footnote that Silva had been “engaged in disgracefully vicious harassment and intimidation.”
“I can imagine no legitimate excuse for Marcus’s behavior as reflected in this record, many of the details of which are not fit for reproduction in a judicial opinion,” the opinion penned by Blacklock read.
Mitchell had sought to delay the trial while the court considered his motion to compel the three women to divulge records as well, but Galveston County Judge Lonnie Cox denied him on both matters Monday. All three had also planned to invoke the Fifth Amendment.
Joanna Grossman, a law professor at Southern Methodist University who specializes in legal issues affecting women, said Silva’s case was never legally viable because a wrongful death must result from some kind of wrongdoing.
Texas law bars physicians from performing all abortions except those to save the mother’s life and major bodily functions, but it does not create any legal liability for the pregnant patient, regardless of what abortion method they use.
See here and here for the background. “Mitchell” is of course top-level forced birth zealot Jonathan Mitchell; he and fellow forced birther Rep. Briscoe Cain brought forth this suit before deciding to, um, abort it. I see nothing to indicate that the countersuit has been or will be dropped, and I hope that Noyola and Carpenter’s attorneys pursue it to the ends of the earth. This was straight up bullshit from the beginning, intended to further intimidate and terrorize anyone who has ever had, contemplated, or supported a friend who has had or contemplated an abortion. Once again I say, if you needed a vivid reminder of the stakes in this election, here you go. The Trib and The 19th have more.
Egregious nonsense like this makes me wonder if an American equivalent of the 4B among the more extreme feminists in South Korea will start catching on. The gender gap in voting is getting wider among young people, and with the more reactionary GOPers openly discussing limiting contraception and banning no fault divorce, more young women could perceive relationships as a trap that they can’t escape if the guy they picked was good at hiding the fact that he’s really a controlling jerk. Not something I’d want to see.