In September 2025, during a second special session, Texas passed HB 7 — the abortion-pill ban. Instead of enforcing it through the state, lawmakers revived the SB 8 "bounty hunter" model: any private citizen can sue anyone who helps a Texan get abortion medication, for at least $100,000. On the floor, Vince named the cruelty that mechanism unleashes.
House Bill 7 — first pushed as SB 2880 during the regular session, then passed in the second special session and signed by Governor Abbott — targets the out-of-state telehealth networks, digital pharmacies, and shield-law providers mailing medication abortion (mifepristone and misoprostol) to Texans. But the way it is enforced reveals what it is really about.
Because intercepting out-of-state mail is nearly impossible, lawmakers copied the "bounty hunter" model from SB 8, the 2021 six-week ban. Rather than criminal prosecution by the state, HB 7 lets private citizens sue anyone who manufactures, distributes, mails, prescribes, or provides abortion-inducing drugs to a Texan — for at least $100,000 per violation, plus court costs and attorney fees.
A late compromise between anti-abortion groups split the money: a plaintiff connected to the pregnancy can collect the full $100,000, while an unconnected plaintiff takes $10,000 and the remaining $90,000 is routed to charity. The pregnant woman herself is shielded — the law explicitly bars suing the patient. Everyone who helps her is the target.
What a rapist's family — his father, his siblings, his grandparents — can collect by suing a rape victim's doctor, counselor, or friend under HB 7.
How long they have to file that lawsuit and drag her doctor, her counselor, or her friend into court.
How long she has under current Texas law to sue her rapist. HB 7 gives her attacker's family more time over her body than she has over her own case.
What the pregnant woman herself can be sued for — patient immunity is written into the bill. The target is every person who helps her.
What the law still allows: the ban carves out narrow medical exceptions — treating ectopic pregnancies, managing a natural miscarriage after the embryo or fetus has already died, and life-threatening emergencies.
Senate Republicans push an abortion-pill ban during the 89th Legislature's regular session. Vince speaks out and votes against it.
Governor Abbott calls a special session targeting, among other things, mail-order abortion medication reaching Texans from out-of-state and shield-law providers.
The Texas House passes HB 7. Abbott signs the bill. Vince votes no and delivers floor remarks that go viral — viewed more than a million times.
HB 7 is law. But the legal challenges, the organizing, and the political fight are ongoing. Vince is not done making the case — in Austin and in El Paso.
"Let's speak plainly about the cruelty this bill unleashes."
"In cases of rape, her perpetrator's family can profit from that crime and from her trauma — his father, his siblings, his grandparents — as if the woman who was violated has no standing in her own life, but the rapist's relatives can walk into a courtroom and collect a check for $100,000."
"This bill gives those family members six years to do it — six years to drag her doctor, her counselor, or her friend into court. But under current Texas law, if a woman is raped, she only has five years to sue her attacker. Think about that."
"This bill gives more time to enforce control over her body than she has to hold her rapist accountable. That is the cruelty and insanity of republicanism in 2025."