Answer filed in Texas, Advancing the “Frivolous” Puerto v. Hawkins with a Pro-Life Defense 

“Attempting to punish the Students for Life team for noticing the obvious – abortion pills can be illegally trafficked – is like going after the person reporting a fire instead of the arsonist. Laws are being broken, and babies are dying, while the sovereignty of Texas law is violated. We are ready to defend ourselves,” said Students for Life’s President Kristan Hawkins.

“This is a prime example of frivolous lawfare and a waste of taxpayer resources,” said Texas Attorney Briscoe Cain, Students for Life alumnus and counsel in the case.

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WASHINGTON D.C. (11-10-2026) – Students for Life of America (SFLA) President Kristan Hawkins announced that counsel has been retained for SFLA team members named in a lawsuit filed in Harris County, Texas, Maria Puerto v. Kristan Hawkins, Lydia Taylor Davis, Jamie Curry, and Megan Roos (Puerto v. Hawkins), in which a woman asks for the cost of raising a child in Texas, claiming pro-life laws supported by SFLA forced her into motherhood, despite the fact that according to the complaint filed, she had her children BEFORE the Texas law allowing civil action was signed into law. Attorneys with the prestigious Thomas More Society along with SFLA-alumni Briscoe Cain will represent the team and filed the first legal response in the case this week, in what is the first step in working toward a call for dismissal. 

The frivolous nature of the lawsuit seems obvious when considering the attorney behind the lawsuit. As SFLA previously reported, “(T)he attorney named in the paperwork – Molly Duane – was once the  Senior Staff Attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights and now has a practice focusing on attacking pro-life laws.”

Peter Breen, Executive Vice President and Head of Litigation at Thomas More Society, observed: “Abortion activists are seeking to punish pro-life women under the very law these brave women fought to pass. Kristan Hawkins and her colleagues did nothing more than gather evidence of an illegal trade and share it with the public, investigative reporting the First Amendment protects. The plaintiff’s lawyers wrote our defense for us: their own petition admits these women weren’t pregnant, weren’t seeking an abortion, and were exposing abortion pill traffickers—precisely the conduct Texas’ abortion pill trafficking law says it does not reach. This case is a patently meritless attempt to silence the truth that out-of-state interests are flooding Texas with abortion pills. We will vigorously defend Kristan and her colleagues until this case is thrown out of court.”

SFLA’s INITIAL STATEMENT: Students for Life Notes the “Backhanded Compliment” that Our Legislative Work Saves Lives in a Lawsuit Filed in Texas

LEARN MORE ABOUT STUDENTS’ TITLE X RIGHTS HERE: Pregnant on Campus Bill of Rights.

Interviews on this matter will be limited, as it is an ongoing legal matter. Email: [email protected]

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The Pro-Life Generation (PLG) is an umbrella organization encompassing cutting-edge engagement opportunities for a Vote Pro-Life First community. PLG includes Students for Life Action (SFLAction), a 501(c)(4), and its 501(c)(3) sister organization, Students for Life of America (SFLA). Together, they make up the nation’s largest pro-life youth organization, managing grassroots political and policy operations that engage Americans of all ages, with special emphasis on the largest segment of voters: the Youth Vote. Headquartered in Fredericksburg, Virginia, PLG, SFLA, and SFLAction serve more than 1,700 groups on middle school, high school, college, medical school, and law school campuses nationwide. Our team has more conversations with the generation targeted by the abortion lobby than any other pro-life operation in the world. Each week, we reach more than 18 million people across social media platforms and average nearly 15 million video views. In addition to SFLA and SFLAction, PLG leads multiple initiatives that serve the future of the pro-life movement, including the Campaign for Abortion Free Cities, Standing With You, and the Demetree Institute for Pro-Life Advancement. Over more than 20 years, PLG CEO Kristan Hawkins has grown the operation into a nearly $25 million organization that is now preparing for an abortion-free America.