"“The Texas law pits citizens against citizens,” said Vladeck, the University of Texas legal scholar. “Even worse, I think what it does is, it encourages citizens to spy on each other.” If the citizen is wrong – if the court finds, for example, that the doctor performed a surgery for a miscarriage and not an abortion – the doctor still has to pay their own legal fees, as Texas law specifically forbids doctors from recouping fees from plaintiffs. “Even for those providers who are confident that what they’re doing is within the letter of the law, they face the specter of potentially ruinous litigation. They can’t stop it. They can’t avoid it. They can’t pre-empt it,” Vladeck said."