According to the Legislative Budget Board (LBB), the fiscal implications to the state of SB 6 cannot be determined. The uncertainty stems primarily from the unknown effect the bill will have on the state court system and the difficulty in estimating how changes to civil actions will influence state revenue. The bill’s core enforcement mechanism, a qui tam process allowing private parties to bring civil suits, could lead to increases in case filings, but the volume, complexity, and potential revenue from penalties or settlements are not predictable.

The measure grants the Attorney General “parens patriae” standing to bring actions for damages or injunctive relief on behalf of unborn children of Texas residents for violations of state criminal abortion laws or relevant federal criminal laws governing the shipment of abortion-inducing drugs. While this could increase litigation activity by the Office of the Attorney General, the agency anticipates that any associated costs could be absorbed within its current budget and staffing levels.

The Office of Court Administration indicates it cannot project the potential workload or related costs for the state judiciary, and the Comptroller of Public Accounts similarly cannot estimate the effect on state revenues. The same uncertainty applies at the local government level; changes in local court caseloads and any related revenue impacts from civil action outcomes are unknown and thus not quantifiable at this time.

SB 6, the Woman and Child Protection Act, advances Texas’s post-Roe abortion enforcement policy by creating a detailed statutory framework to prohibit the manufacture, distribution, mailing, prescribing, or provision of abortion-inducing drugs, except in narrowly defined situations such as treatment of a medical emergency, removal of an ectopic pregnancy, or miscarriage management. The bill expressly shields certain actors, like internet service providers, search engines, and cloud service providers, from liability when they merely provide neutral services, focusing enforcement on those who directly engage in or profit from the prohibited activities.

Enforcement is channeled almost entirely through private civil actions rather than traditional government prosecution. Any private person, excluding government officials and political subdivisions, may bring a qui tam lawsuit against violators, with statutory damages set at a minimum of $100,000 per violation, plus injunctive relief and attorneys’ fees. This design mirrors the Texas Heartbeat Act’s citizen enforcement mechanism and is intended both to deter violations and to limit direct governmental enforcement exposure. In addition, the bill grants the Attorney General parens patriae standing to bring separate civil actions to protect unborn children, further augmenting enforcement without expanding criminal penalties.

SB 6 incorporates extensive jurisdictional and procedural safeguards to protect the statute from being undermined in court. These include voiding contractual choice-of-law and choice-of-forum clauses that would direct disputes to more permissive jurisdictions, limiting certain defenses, exempting actions from the Texas Citizens Participation Act and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and channeling appeals to the newly established Fifteenth Court of Appeals. It also strengthens sovereign immunity protections for state actors and adds fee-shifting provisions designed to deter unsuccessful legal challenges to Texas abortion laws. As such, Texas Policy Research recommends that lawmakers vote YES on SB 6.

• Individual Liberty: The bill limits the ability of individuals to access, possess, or distribute abortion-inducing drugs, and it also narrows the scope of speech and transactions that can be lawfully connected to those drugs. The bill defends the liberty of unborn children, treating the right to life as foundational and therefore a liberty interest that justifies restrictions on certain actions by others.
• Personal Responsibility: The bill increases accountability for actors who facilitate, profit from, or deliberately enable prohibited abortion activity. Distributors, facilitators, and service providers who knowingly participate in the chain of supply for abortion-inducing drugs face significant civil liability, creating a strong deterrent against such conduct. The citizen enforcement structure also gives individuals, particularly those directly affected, such as parents of an unborn child, legal tools to hold violators accountable. This reinforces the idea that maintaining community standards and compliance with the law is a shared responsibility.
• Free Enterprise: Markets are not value-neutral, and the law has a role in preventing the commercialization of activity deemed harmful to life and public welfare. The bill protects the integrity of commerce by excluding inherently prohibited goods and services.
• Private Property Rights: The bill does not involve eminent domain or direct seizure of property. However, it does impose liability that can affect the use of informational property, such as online platforms, websites, and hosted content, if those are used to facilitate prohibited transactions. This raises questions about the scope of liability for property owners in digital spaces. The bill attempts to balance this by carving out exemptions for neutral service providers like ISPs, search engines, and cloud hosts, preserving their property interests when they are not directly involved in prohibited acts.
• Limited Government: Rather than expanding state enforcement agencies or criminal penalties, the bill channels enforcement through private civil litigation. Proponents see this as an example of limited government because it reduces direct state involvement, minimizes taxpayer-funded enforcement, and allows private citizens to uphold the law. Critics counter that enabling widespread private lawsuits may effectively expand the reach of state policy through private actors, creating a form of quasi-government enforcement that can still impose significant burdens on courts and defendants. Nonetheless, from the limited-government perspective, the bill avoids direct government prosecution and retains enforcement within the civil legal system.

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89th Legislative Session Policy Brief: Abortion