After the Supreme Court in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization (2022) overturned Roe v. Wade (1973), the landmark legal decision recognizing a constitutional right to abortion, numerous states passed laws to restrict abortions in unique, all-encompassing ways.

Texas passed its most restrictive abortion law on Aug. 25, 2023, effectively outlawing all abortions in the state. As part of the overarching ban, a new law was passed that gave private citizens the right to sue anyone (friend, family, or anyone they suspected) who “aids or abets” any woman looking to get an abortion.

A Texas man, Marcus Silva, used the state abortion law in a lawsuit against his ex-wife’s friends, as a legally deputized Texas citizen in 2023, under the new Texas law. In his suit, he named three friends of his ex-wife Brittni Silva - Jackie Noyola, Amy Carpenter, and Aracely Garcia - whom he claimed were aiding and abetting her in procuring an abortion.

One of Silva’s attorneys was the former solicitor general of Texas, Jonathan Mitchell, who is called the ‘architect’ of the state’s highly restrictive state abortion ban, and also the de facto leader in representing plaintiffs in lawsuits against anyone aiding or abetting abortions.

In his ‘wrongful death’ civil lawsuit, Mr. Silva alleged his ex-wife’s friends gave her the abortion medication and attempted to “conceal the pregnancy and murder from Marcus, the father of the unborn child.”

In Texas, the law does not allow civil or criminal charges to be brought against a pregnant patient who had an abortion, so Mr. Silva’s ex-wife was not part of the lawsuit.

Mr. Silva was seeking $1 million from the three defendants. This lawsuit was the first of its kind.

Now, Mr. Silva has dropped his lawsuit, avoiding a first-of-its-kind abortion trial, after the parties reached a settlement.

In court documents, Mr. Silva claimed his ex-wife’s three friends were helping her to procure abortion pills.

In response to Mr. Silva’s lawsuit last year, Ms. Noyola and Ms. Carpenter countersued. The two plaintiffs include allegations that Mr. Silva did nothing once he found out about the abortion medication his ex-wife obtained. The plaintiffs also said their right to privacy was violated and that Mr. Silva violated the Texas Harmful Access by Computer Act, a law that makes it a crime to “access a computer without the consent of the owner.” The basis for this counterclaim was Silva’s unauthorized search of his ex-wife’s phone history, which included text messages between Brittni Silva and the two women.

“Rather than talking with [his ex-wife] about what he found or disposing of the pill, Silva took photos of the texts and surreptitiously put the pill back,” the lawsuit says. “He wasn’t interested in stopping her from terminating a possible pregnancy. 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.”

Evidence in the countersuit included a photo of a police report, supposedly made at the League City Police Department, where Silva allegedly said he found an abortion pill in his ex-wife’s handbag the week of July 10. The police report was filed on July 17, and Silva supposedly told his ex-wife two weeks after the police report that he knew about the abortion.

The countersuit claimed Silva, in the midst of the divorce with his ex-wife, threatened her that he would use the screenshots to send her to jail. His ex-wife texted the two of her friends countersuing her ex-husband that he told her she must “give him my ‘mind body and soul’ until the end of the divorce, which he’s going to drag out.” Allegations from Silva’s ex-wife include that her ex-husband wanted full, primary custody of their two children and was forcing her to sell their marital home where she and the children lived.

In the countersuit court documents, attorneys state that Mr. Silva illegally accessed his ex-wife’s phone, without any consent, and discovered text messages between her and her friends about the abortion conversations. This alleged act, Ms. Noyola and Ms. Carpenter argued, was a breach of their privacy.

With the court case looming, a Texas appeals court agreed that Mr. Silva’s actions were a “disgracefully vicious harassment and intimidation” of his ex-wife.

The exact details of the settlement were not made public, but they did not involve any financial terms, according to lawyers for both sides.

Ms. Noyola and Ms. Carpenter dropped the counterclaims they had filed.