(LifeSiteNews) — The father of an unborn baby who died after an abortion allegedly induced via drugs countersued and claimed the woman tried to induce the abortion herself.
Christopher Cooprider, a U.S. Marine, accused Liana Davis of lying about him in a federal lawsuit filed in August. As previously reported by LifeSiteNews, Davis accused Cooprider of berating her into having an abortion and then ultimately tricking her by putting abortion pills in her hot chocolate and abandoning her.
But Cooprider has a different version of the story, which includes the claim a law against mailing abortion drugs is no longer enforced. It also challenges the right of Texas to prosecute abortions via chemicals, saying such a law is preempted by federal approval.
Cooprider is suing for $100 million in “actual damages” and another $1 billion in “exemplary damages,” which he said will go to the Wounded Warrior Project if he wins.
He argues law enforcement already dismissed a criminal complaint filed by Davis making the same allegations. Instead, Davis is making the allegations in order to help the pro-life movement. Texas is currently considering a law to allow for lawsuits against abortion pill distributors.
Davis, the lawsuit alleges, “intended to frame him with false allegations that he poisoned her.” He accuses her of deleting messages and misrepresenting them in her lawsuit to frame him.
The lawsuit says Davis “suggested to others that she wanted (Cooprider) to order the pills.” She also reportedly “faked” taking the abortion drugs in February knowing she was not pregnant.
The second time she did get pregnant, Davis likely contributed to her own miscarriage, the lawsuit alleges. She did so through heavy drinking, not treating a sexually transmitted disease, and undertaking “high impact” activities such as “jumping on a trampoline” and “landing on her stomach.”
Cooprider’s attorneys provided text messages and transcripts of calls in support of their lawsuit.
Jonathan Mitchell, Davis’ attorney, stands by the lawsuit. “Cooprider is guilty as sin and will be held to account for what he did,” he told the media, as reported by NBC News.
Attorneys argue law against mailing abortion drugs is no longer in effect
Among the defenses offered by Cooprider are two that benefit the pro-abortion movement and its goal to flood the country with dangerous abortion drugs and effectively undermine Dobbs v. Jackson.
His attorneys argue the Comstock Act of 1873 “is effectively dead because such law has not been enforced for three quarters of a century since its enactment.”
“This wholesale non-enforcement of the Comstock Act means any ostensible violation of it in 2025 cannot be a ‘wrongful act’ under the law,” his attorneys argued.
The law prohibits the mailing of “Every article or thing designed, adapted, or intended for producing abortion.”
While the Biden administration ignored the clear language of the law, a legal scholar says it is still in effect.
The reason it has not been enforced for decades, as Heritage Foundation expert Thomas Jipping points out, is because Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey effectively blocked any federal abortion law.
“The plain, ordinary, and unambiguous meaning of § 1461 prohibits using the mail to send or deliver anything that is designed, adapted, or intended to produce abortion,” Jipping stated. “The Justice Department is wrong,” he wrote, commenting on the Biden administration’s manufactured legal defense of allowing the shipping of the drugs. “Federal law prohibits mailing abortion drugs.”
Cooprider’s attorneys also argue that he cannot be charged in any case for violating Texas law against the use of abortion drugs because the Food and Drug Administration allows for their use. This legality, they argue, preempts a state law against abortion drugs. Conveniently, such a ruling would benefit the abortion lobby.
However, at least one federal court has already weighed in on this argument.
In July, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a challenge by GenBioPro, which manufactures abortion drugs and thus profits off the destruction of innocent human life, as previously reported by LifeSiteNews.
The abortion drug manufacturer argued only the Food and Drug Administration could restrict access to mifepristone, which it wanted to sell to West Virginia women so they could kill their babies. The company had never sold abortion drugs in West Virginia, however.
As the court affirmed, the Dobbs v. Jackson decision in June 2022 made it clear states can regulate, and even prohibit, the intentional destruction of innocent human life.
“For us to once again federalize the issue of abortion without a clear directive from Congress, right on the heels of Dobbs, would leave us one small step short of defiance,” Judge Harvie Wilkinson wrote in the majority opinion.
