SW News: A proposed Texas state legislation would make it a criminal offense for internet service providers (ISP) to give access to websites that sell abortion pills or provide information about the procedure. The bill called the Women and Child Safety Act, was introduced by Republican Steve Toth on February 23 and would criminalize creating, editing, or hosting a website that would in any way assist people seeking an abortion.

Following the bill's passage, the internet service providers would be obligated to "make every reasonable and technologically feasible effort" to prevent users from accessing information "intended to assist or facilitate efforts to obtain an elective abortion or an abortion-inducing drug" online.

Toth pointed out the names of the websites of Aid Access, Hey Jane, Plan C, Choix, Just The Pill, and Carafem, stating that they must be blocked expressly by ISPs. The proposed legislation also requires blocking any website or app run by or on behalf of an abortion provider or abortion funding.

The proposed legislation also makes it illegal to conceal or destroy any documentation of an "attempted or conducted" abortion in Texas or on a Texas citizen outside the state.

The Texas legislature has been working to restrict the number of abortions since the state's abortion ban went into effect on June 24, 2022, and Toth's bill is considered the first of its sort. The legislation comes in response to the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which resulted in a ban on abortion in Texas starting in August 2022 with no exceptions for rape or incest.