(OPINION) Last year, in Texas, a deteriorating marriage became the testing ground for a novel legal strategy favored by some of the country’s most prominent right-wing lawyers and politicians.

Marcus and Brittni Silva’s divorce had just been finalized when Marcus filed a lawsuit against two of Brittni’s friends. According to his complaint, Brittni had discovered that she was pregnant with their baby in July 2022, and ended the pregnancy by taking abortion medication.

Marcus alleges that her friends Jackie Noyola and Amy Carpenter “assisted Brittni Silva in murdering Ms. Silva’s unborn child.” He is suing for wrongful death and asking for at least $1 million in damages from each defendant.

Noyola and Carpenter tell their own version of what happened in a countersuit they filed. Marcus drank often, they allege, and when he did, he was prone to verbally abusing Brittni.

He got so drunk at one of her work events that he had to be escorted off the premises—but not before he called her a “slut,” a “whore,” and an “unfit mother” in front of her co-workers.

Brittni had stayed in the marriage for the sake of their two daughters, but Marcus’s outburst convinced her that there was no saving it. In the spring of 2022, she filed for divorce.

That summer, soon after Roe v. Wade was overturned but before Texas’s abortion “trigger ban” went into effect, Brittni got a positive result on a pregnancy test.

Certain that she did not want to have another child with Marcus, Brittni texted Noyola and Carpenter to talk about her options. Noyola and Carpenter allege that Marcus disapproved of the friendship; he would sometimes hide Brittni’s car keys to try to prevent her from seeing her friends. (READ MORE)