Texas man drops lawsuit against women accused of helping ex-wife get abortion

A Texas man who sued his ex-wife’s friends for allegedly helping her get an abortion dropped his lawsuit on Thursday after the case was settled.

Marcus Silva first sued Jackie Noyola and Amy Carpenter – both friends of his ex-wife – along with Aracely Garcia in 2023, alleging that the three had helped her obtain abortion pills in July 2022, about two months after she filed for divorce. Silva asked a Texas district court to award him more than $1m in damages for their “criminal and murderous actions”.

Abortion bans typically target providers, not patients, and Texas, like the vast majority of states, does not criminalize self-managed abortion. (Silva’s ex-wife was not named as a defendant in the lawsuit.) However, abortion rights advocates feared that, even if the first-of-its-kind lawsuit was not legally sound, it would still intimidate people out of helping one another get abortions.

Related: Tracking abortion laws across the United States

The case had been set to go to trial before Silva dropped the lawsuit. In court filings, Silva did not explain his reason for the decision, but a notice of settlement was submitted to the court. Carpenter told the Washington Post that no money had been exchanged as part of Silva’s abandonment of the lawsuit.

Silva was represented in the lawsuit by Jonathan Mitchell, a lawyer who masterminded the Texas six-week abortion ban that deputized ordinary people to sue one another over suspected illegal abortions.

“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 in a statement. “No one should ever have to fear punishment, criminalization, or a lengthy court battle for helping someone they care about.”

“This case was about using the legal system to harass us for helping our friend, and scare others out of doing the same,” Carpenter added. “After two years of being entangled in Mitchell and Silva’s campaign of abusive litigation, we were ready to fight this baseless suit in court. But the claims were dropped because they had nothing. We did nothing wrong, and we would do it all again.”