Texas Supreme Court weighs whether to dismiss abortion funds’ defamation case against anti-abortion activist

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The Texas Supreme Court docket heard arguments Wednesday over whether or not a defamation case introduced by a number of abortion funds in opposition to outstanding anti-abortion activist Mark Lee Dickson needs to be dismissed.

In 2019, Waskom in Harrison County turned the primary Texas metropolis to largely outlaw abortion and teams that help it, like abortion funds, by adopting a Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn ordinance, following a marketing campaign began by Dickson.

Then in 2020, three abortion funds — the Afiya Middle, Texas Equal Entry Fund and Lilith Fund for Reproductive Fairness — sued Dickson, the director of Proper to Lifetime of East Texas, for defamation. Dickson had referred to the teams, which give monetary help to sufferers looking for abortions, as “prison organizations” in statements on social media.

On Wednesday, Dickson’s legal professional, Jonathan Mitchell, mentioned his shopper’s statements weren’t defamatory as a result of they had been true.

“They’re criminals as a result of they’ve violated the prison legal guidelines of Texas, which imposes felony prison legal responsibility on any one who quote ‘furnishes the means for procuring an abortion,’” mentioned Mitchell, a former solicitor common of Texas. He’s additionally the architect behind the the state legislation that made performing an abortion unlawful after fetal cardiac exercise is detected, often round six weeks of being pregnant.

After the U.S. Supreme Court docket overturned Roe v. Wade final summer season, abortion is banned generally in Texas.

Mitchell argued that the defamation case needs to be dismissed below the Texas Residents Participation Act, which protects people from strategic lawsuits in opposition to public participation.

Specifically, Mitchell argued that Texas by no means repealed an 1897 legislation that punishes these “furnishing the means for procuring an abortion” and that Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark U.S. Supreme Court docket case that legalized abortion, didn’t make funding one other particular person’s abortion a constitutional proper.

“The courtroom ought to say that these statements, removed from being nondefamatory, are literally true to stop future lawsuits like this from ever getting off the bottom,” Mitchell argued. “This has been a marketing campaign to intimidate constitutionally protected speech.”

Mitchell added that there are different grounds to dismiss the case, arguing that the abortion funds must show Dickson made his statements with “reckless disregard for the reality.”

Beth Klussman, an legal professional for the state of Texas, additionally spoke in help of Dickson. She argued that his statements had been protected as a result of they had been opinions, just like how opponents of the demise penalty discuss with executions carried out by the state as homicide. Legal professional Jennifer Ecklund, who represents the abortion funds, responded that Dickson’s language needs to be thought of a factual assertion as a result of it was particular fairly than about broad matters.

“Now we have a defendant who particularly mentioned I’m telling you as a proven fact that that is the state of the legislation and that these individuals are committing crimes,” she mentioned. “That could be a very singular set of info.”

Ecklund added that the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court docket ruling made Texas’ pre-Roe legislation in query unconstitutional on the time, and subsequently calling the abortion funds “prison” infringes on their freedom of speech and affiliation. And he or she mentioned the teams have been complying with the legislation for the reason that Dobbs determination.

“Individuals are afraid to affiliate with them. Individuals are afraid to donate. Individuals are afraid to precise their views for worry that they may even be referred to as literal criminals who may be prosecuted based mostly on issues that they imagine had been completely constitutional,” Ecklund mentioned.

The Texas Supreme Court docket is predicted to ship a ruling earlier than the top of its present time period in June 2023.

Disclosure: Afiya Middle has been a monetary supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan information group that’s funded partially by donations from members, foundations and company sponsors. Monetary supporters play no position within the Tribune’s journalism. Discover a full record of them right here.