Last March on Instagram, Students for Life President Kristan Hawkins posted a photo showing her and two other members of the Virginia-based group standing outside Space Center Houston. According to the captions, Hawkins and her fellow activists, one of whom was holding a mobile phone, were "ordering abortion pills undercover."

A lawsuit filed last week in Harris County, which includes Houston, describes that Instagram post as "nothing more than a publicity stunt." The lawsuit, which aims to deploy a Texas abortion law championed by Students for Life against the organization, is also a publicity stunt. But while it may be effective by that measure, it faces legal challenges that will be hard to overcome.

The lawsuit, which a Texas woman who opposes her state's abortion ban filed under the pseudonym Maria Puerto with help from the reproductive rights group Amplify Legal, is supposed to highlight the vagueness and broad scope of House Bill 7, a 2025 law that authorizes private civil action to enforce state restrictions on "abortion-inducing" drugs. But Puerto's attempted act of legal jiu-jitsu seems too clever by half, relying on a dubious reading of the statute to seek "monetary compensation" it does not authorize and thereby punish anti-abortion activists for constitutionally protected advocacy.

H.B. 7, also known as the Woman and Child Protection Act, says "a person may not manufacture or distribute an abortion-inducing drug in this state" or "mail, transport, deliver, prescribe, or provide an abortion-inducing drug in any manner to or from any person or location in this state." Those prohibitions, it says, "may be enforced only through a qui tam action" against a "person" who "violates" or "intends to violate" them.

Any "person" other than a state or local official can qualify as a "relator" authorized to bring such an action. The relator can seek injunctive relief and "an amount of not less than $100,000 for each violation," plus "costs and reasonable attorney's fees." A successful relator generally receives $10,000 of that "amount," with the rest going to a "charitable organization" of his choice.

As a "person" who is not a government official, Puerto meets H.B. 7's minimal test for standing. And although H.B. 7 precludes lawsuits against pregnant women who obtain "an abortion-inducing drug," Puerto says Hawkins and the other activists "are not pregnant and were not pregnant" at the time of the Instagram post. So far, so good. But although the lawsuit asserts that Hawkins et al. "openly and flagrantly violated" the law's prohibitions, it does not explain how.

A photo accompanying a recent Mother Jones profile of Hawkins shows her and her social media coordinator, Lydia Taylor Davis, outside Space Center Houston during their "abortion-pill 'sting' stunt." Another Mother Jones photo shows Hawkins holding a mobile phone displaying what Puerto's lawsuit describes as "an order confirmation."

Judging from the Mother Jones account, it is not clear whether that description is accurate. "The scheme rapidly went off the rails," Amy Littlefield writes. "The plan was to purchase pills from a couple of services, with Hawkins posing as a male abuser while Davis pretended to be a 16-year-old—all to try to portray mail-order suppliers as reckless and dangerous. For reasons even she couldn't explain, Hawkins chose the fake name 'Wanda' as her male-abuser alter ego. But when Davis input her information, she hit a snag."

Davis was trying to order pills from the Massachusetts Medication Abortion Access Project. But according to Littlefield, that organization "had blocked Davis in its system after Students for Life teased the sting operation on social media." Hawkins "attempted to save the stunt by placing her own order, but 'Wanda' accidentally gave her age as 15," which was below the supplier's minimum age, Littlefield says. "Now a security guard was wandering over to tell them they couldn't film. Having set out to show that telemedicine services don't screen their clients, they inadvertently proved the opposite."

Puerto "will need proof that the Students for Life leaders actually obtained or intended to obtain the pills," abortion law scholar Mary Ziegler notes in Slate. "The activists may argue that the post was not in earnest, and that no one involved ever seriously intended to bring pills into Texas."

Even assuming that Hawkins et al. successfully ordered abortion pills, that conduct by itself does not fit the language of H.B. 7, which applies to people who "distribute" such drugs or who "mail, transport, deliver, prescribe, or provide" them "to or from any person or location in this state." That language encompasses out-of-state suppliers, which raises obvious concerns about extraterritorial application of Texas law. But on its face, the prohibition does not cover someone who simply orders abortion pills.

Puerto's lawyer, Amplify Legal attorney Molly Duane, argues that Hawkins et al. could be covered by the statute's reference to transportation. "What the statute says is that transporting abortion drugs from one location to another within the state is a violation of H.B. 7," Duane told The Texas Tribune. "By the plain language of the statute, this would seem to be a violation. This is the problem with writing such a confusing and vague law."

Under that theory, however, Hawkins, Davis, and the two other activists named in the lawsuit violated H.B. 7 only if they 1) successfully ordered abortion pills, 2) took delivery of them, and 3) subsequently moved them to another location within Texas. The lawsuit alleges only that they "ordered abortion pills, apparently multiple times." According to The Texas Tribune, Duane and Puerto "are hoping that the lawsuit will eventually surface more about what the defendants did with the abortion pills once they ordered them."

The lawsuit faces another obstacle. H.B. 7 does not apply to "speech or conduct protected by the First Amendment." Hawkins et al.'s efforts to show how easily state abortion bans can be circumvented certainly seem to fall into that category. "Students for Life may stress that the case targets their political speech about abortion," which is "protected under the First Amendment," Ziegler notes.

Those are not the only puzzling aspects of the lawsuit. Puerto, a 26-year-old single mother of two young children, emphasizes that she "had no choice but to continue" those pregnancies because she did not "have access to transportation or the economic resources to pay for travel out of state." The lawsuit devotes 11 paragraphs to describing the burdens imposed by her state's denial of "true reproductive rights," which she argues justifies some sort of compensation.

All of this seems legally irrelevant under H.B. 7, which does not require a relator to allege damages of any sort, let alone damages stemming from the abortion ban it aims to reinforce. "With nowhere else to turn for assistance," the lawsuit says, "Ms. Puerto is seeking financial compensation" from Hawkins et al. "in the amount of $459,782—the average cost of raising two children from birth to age 18 in the state of Texas."

Although H.B. 7 sets a minimum award of $100,000, the lawsuit notes, "there is no cap on the monetary compensation owed a relator." But the law does not describe H.B. 7 awards as "monetary compensation" for injuries allegedly suffered by the relator.

The statute's only reference to "compensatory damages" deals with lawsuits filed against H.B. 7 relators under "clawback provisions" of other states that have tried to thwart such litigation. In response to a "clawback" action, the law says, an H.B. 7 relator can seek "compensatory damages, including money damages in an amount equal to the judgment damages and costs, expenses, and reasonable attorney's fees spent in defending the action." By contrast, the bounty for proving a violation of the restrictions on abortion pills is simply "an amount."

The lawsuit itself, emphasizing the lax standards for filing a claim under H.B. 7, notes that Puerto "did not suffer an injury traceable to [the defendants'] ordering of abortion pills that can be remedied by a court." But it suggests that an award to Puerto would be appropriate given the defendants' anti-abortion activism.

The lawsuit notes that Students for Life "proudly advertised" its support for H.B. 7. Puerto complains that Hawkins et al. "ignore the immense harms and multiple deaths already attributed to Texas's cruel abortion bans" and "demean the six million Texans of reproductive age who have had their ability to decide whether and when to begin or expand a family stripped away by these bans." Whatever you make of that charge, the defendants' activism is constitutionally protected and therefore cannot support a cause of action in civil court.

"Texas is a strange place filled with vigilante statutes" that "seek to turn Texans against each other," Duane told The Texas Tribune. "But if anyone should be benefiting from these legal regimes, it's people like our client." While "putting those two things together…might be unusual," she said, "this is the situation that Texas has put its citizens in."

Depending on your perspective, you may or may not sympathize with Duane's reasoning. But it seems unlikely to pass muster as a matter of law.

The post A Texas Lawsuit Dubiously Accuses Students for Life of Violating the State's Abortion Pill Restrictions appeared first on Reason Magazine.

Matt Gaetz resigned from the U.S. House of Representatives in November 2024, shortly before the House Ethics Committee released a report accusing him of having sex with a 17-year-old girl in 2017, when he was 35, and "regularly pa[ying] women for engaging in sexual activity with him." The probe was widely discussed as a sex trafficking probe, but the ethics committee "did not find sufficient evidence to conclude that Representative Gaetz violated the federal sex trafficking statute," per its report.

Now two women have filed a civil lawsuit accusing Gaetz of sex trafficking.

The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, says that Gaetz and two other men (Joel Micah Greenberg and Christopher Dorworth) broke federal anti-trafficking laws by using "their public office, power, and wealth to prey on the economic vulnerability" of Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2.

Gaetz, who now hosts The Matt Gaetz Show on One America News Network, said many of the suit's allegations against him are false. "The lawsuit relies almost exclusively on a Congressional Committee report that didn't allow me to confront my accusers," he said. "Now I will finally have that chance."

On X, Gaetz posted an image of three women in bikinis seated next to bottles of beer and looking at the ocean and wrote "Jane Doe Strikes Again! Two adult women sued me today alleging they were sex trafficked to the Bahamas. I'm shocked nobody responded to their repeated cries for help, posted to instagram."

Jane Doe Strikes Again! Two adult women sued me today alleging they were sex trafficked to the Bahamas. I'm shocked nobody responded to their repeated cries for help, posted to instagram. https://t.co/HPvX2xypzs

— Matt Gaetz (@mattgaetz) October 15, 2026

This does not seem like especially helpful behavior from a public relations perspective, to say nothing of whether it's legally wise to for Gaetz to be posting to social media about the suit against him.

But Gaetz's point isn't entirely off base. The actions described in the suit against him are hardly what most people would consider sex trafficking.

Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2 were adult women willingly advertising on Seeking Arrangement, a site aimed at connecting young women with rich men for mutually beneficial relationships. And by their own account, that is what went down. They were taken on trips and paid thousands of dollars while hanging out, partying, and having sex with Gaetz and his friends.

Needless to say, advertising on a sugar baby website does not make you fair game for forced prostitution or sexual assault. But nowhere in the lawsuit are forced prostitution or sexual assault alleged.

Instead, we get sentences like this: Gaetz and the other defendents "led [Jane Doe 1] to believe they could solve her financial problems as long as she kept performing sexual acts for them and their associates," states the suit. But "the money never came as a single payment that would have solved Jane Doe 1's financial issues."

So…it's sex trafficking because he didn't pay her enough at one time? I don't think that's how the law works.

Overall, it's a stretch to say that Gaetz's actions as described in this suit fall under the scope of the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act. Under federal law, sex trafficking must involve an element of force, fraud, or coercion, and/or must involve commercial sex involving someone who is under age 18.

In this case, both alleged victims were in their 20s at the time of the alleged trafficking. No element of force or fraud is claimed. And the type of "coercion" alleged seems more appropriate for a college debate than a courtroom.

There was no suggestion that harm would come to the women or their families, that a job or housing would be lost, or that failure to engage in sexual activity with Gaetz and his friends would result in some sort of other (physical, reputational, legal, etc.) harm befalling them. There was nothing on Gaetz's end that would seem to arise to "coercion" under federal trafficking statute, which defines it as involving "threats of serious harm to or physical restraint against any person," a scheme to make someone believe that serious harm will befall them if they don't comply, or abuse or threatened abuse of the legal process.

The suit contains a lot about Greenberg—a former tax collector who is in prison after pleading guilty to charges that include sex trafficking—and comparatively little about Gaetz. It seemingly attempts to make up for the lack of direct allegations against him by noting findings from the Ethics Committee, even though that committee specifically said it could not find evidence of sex trafficking.

Gaetz is accused of having sex with Jane Doe 1 at a party while Jane Done 1 was on MDMA. But the suit does not accuse Gaetz of foisting drugs on her, simply saying "controlled substances circulated at the party, and Jane Doe 1 took MDMA during the evening." Nor does it say that anyone forced Jane Doe 1 to be at the party or to have sex with Gaetz.

Gaetz is also accused of paying Jane Doe thousands of dollars—never directly after sex or as a direct quid pro quo, but during the same time period during which he was having sex with her. The payments were labeled things like "Being my friend," "Being awesome," "Here," and "Just because," the suit says.

And Gaetz is accused, along with the other defendants, of paying to fly Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2—whom Greenberg met through the sugar baby website and introduced to Gaetz—"to Venice Beach, Miami, Las Vegas, the Florida Keys, the Bahamas, and New York City" and paying for their hotel rooms. The suit does not say that they were forced or coerced on these trips, merely that the trips exposed them to "men they would never otherwise have met, and every part of that access, from the flights to the hotel rooms, was paid for by men, including the Defendants, who expected sex in return."

The women's lawyer told the Associated Press that there was "an exploitative power imbalance," because on one side you had a congressman and some other powerful men and on the other "young financially vulnerable women in their early twenties."

Morally speaking, that might be relevant. And for a congressman, it may have been grounds for sanction. But the fact that these women were younger and less financially successful does not make a relationship between them and Gaetz de facto "coercive" or illegal.

Age gaps in relationships—even substantial ones—are not outlawed. And relationships in which an older man is attractive precisely because he has more money and power than the younger female involved, and offers to spend it lavishly, are not uncommon. The idea that this violates federal criminal law simply showcases how distorted our ideas of sex trafficking have become.

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In the News

Children have a fundamental right to access the internet, says India's Supreme Court. The Free Press Journal reports:

"The safety of our children and their freedom are not at odds with each other. Our children are entitled to both," the court observed.

The bench explicitly recognised the right to access and use the internet as a fundamental right under Article 21, which protects life and personal liberty, read with Article 19(1)(a), which guarantees freedom of speech and expression.

Meanwhile, in the U.S.: "A federal appeals court panel has ruled that Florida's 2024 law restricting access to social media for teens is likely constitutional and can continued to be enforced while the legal challenge continues," notes the Florida Phoenix.

We were promised REPEATEDLY that age-verification law was narrow, and would ONLY apply to porn. But— as we warned —it was always a ruse.Since conservatives got their ruling in FSC v Paxton, they've pushed to age-gate anything and everything. It's not going to stop with social media or chatbots.

— Mike Stabile (@mikestabile.bsky.social) 2026-10-15T18:24:17.874Z

Florida isn't just using legislation to go after young people's internet freedom more broadly:

Florida is using litigation to implement digital ID through universal age verification - one platform at a time.

Florida's lawsuit against Discord is so far, the most aggressive, in pursuing age verification and surveillance under the guise of "protecting kids."

— Protecting Kids Online (@PKOproject) October 18, 2026

'Appropriate safeguards.' A small change in the language of the Apple App Store's app review guidelines could portend big changes. Via 9to5Mac:

Under Section 1.2, which covers user-generated content, the guidelines now read (changes in bold):

Apps that enable users to create, generate, upload, share, or otherwise contribute content present particular challenges, including intellectual property infringement, nonconsensual intimate imagery, and anonymous bullying.

Apple's new terms add that "Developers who fail to implement appropriate safeguards or fail to remediate identified violations after notice may be considered in violation of the Developer Code of Conduct."

The change is being reported as a crackdown on "nudification" apps, and that certainly seems to be part of it. But the language about going after "developers who fail to implement appropriate safeguards"—combined with the broad warning about user-generated content—could signal a broader intent to crack down on social media platforms and other types of apps that don't implement ID verification or engage in more intense content moderation.

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On Substack

Don't sacrifice due process to outrage. We can't let anger over allegations of gang rape at Cornell convince us to re-implement old Title IV policies that disregard due process, writes Robert Shipley of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression:

There's a groundswell of demand to "do something" in the wake of the sexual assault claims at Cornell. But amid the outrage and concern over the incident, it's critical to remember that one attempted remedy we actually know will not work is to return to a campus justice system in which the burden of proof is on the accused and basic civil liberties are cast aside. That social experiment has already been run. It failed.

Title IX, the law against sex discrimination in federally funded education programs, was passed in 1972. Debates at the time focused on how it would affect single-sex colleges and college athletics. Explicitly aimed at sex discrimination, the text of the law itself mentions neither sexual assault nor sexual harassment. Those became matters for Title IX gradually over the next couple of decades, as courts determined that sexual assault and sexual harassment were both forms of sex discrimination, and therefore covered under Title IX.

The Jane Doe lawsuit against Cornell and the accused students (as well as a fraternity, a sorority, and a local bar) hit national news at nearly the same time that the Trump administration officially removed the Biden-era regulations from the Federal Register. While almost certainly not related, some have connected the two, citing the Cornell incident to argue that regulations surrounding Title IX need to be changed again to reduce due process protections for the accused.

More here.

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Read This Thread

Not to pick on Sam here, but this is a useful point to highlight some of the impossibility of trust & safety work. Meta actually used to have a program *exactly* like this, BUT it became a central feature of Frances Haugen's Facebook Files as an example of Meta being evil.I'll explain…

— Mike Masnick (@masnick.com) 2026-10-17T20:27:37.894Z

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More Sex & Tech

• A new pair of high-tech sunglasses from Meta "can read your mail, describe the person in front of you, tell you what is on a restaurant menu, and help you find your way home," writes Reason's Reem Ibrahim. "For the approximately 700,000 Americans who are blind, it is potentially life-changing."

• "The Supreme Court of Canada has upheld a decision ordering new trials for two people facing human trafficking and sexual services offences, after concluding they should have been able to cross-examine a complainant about the commercial aspect of her prior sex work," reports The Canadian Press. "The case looked at the application of section 276 of the Criminal Code, known as the rape shield law, which limits use of evidence about a complainant's sexual history in court proceedings."

• Markets in everything:

This website lets you attend the wedding of complete strangers

Couples list their weddings and users can buy a ticket to attend https://t.co/8b7EawyFod

— Dexerto (@Dexerto) October 18, 2026

• Reclaim the Net explains Germany's new digital ID.

• The People First Transportation Alliance has been campaigning against robot taxis in D.C. "But just who is behind the group remains unclear, even as it has sought to sway the outcome of a contentious issue with vast sums of money and thousands of jobs at stake across the country," reports The Washington Post.

• From Reason's Meagan O'Rourke: In a race that could flip the U.S. House of Representatives, nobody wants to be the pro-tech candidate.

• A proposed App Store Accountability Act in Idaho "is a de facto digital ID," warns Julie Barrett.

The post Matt Gaetz Lawsuit Shows How Twisted the Term 'Sex Trafficking' Has Become appeared first on Reason Magazine.