The woman’s lawsuit accused her partner of lacing her drink with misopostol to terminate her pregnancy.Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto/AP
A Texas man accused of putting abortion pills in his partner’s drink has countersued for $100 million, claiming she made the whole thing up.
Last month, Autonomy News reported on a lawsuit filed by Liana Davis, a Texas woman who alleged that Christopher Cooprider, a 34-year-old Marine pilot, had given her abortion-inducing medication without her knowledge or consent, causing her to lose her pregnancy. On Wednesday, Cooprider countersued Davis in the same federal court in Corpus Christi, Texas, alleging that Davis’ suit was malicious and intended to cause him emotional distress.
When covering the initial complaint, Autonomy News did not name either party, but is doing so now because Cooprider alleges the suit was fraudulent and initiated for retribution and political purposes. Davis is represented by anti-abortion legal activist and former Texas Solicitor General Jonathan Mitchell, and the case is thought to be the first instance of a woman suing for wrongful death from abortion pills.
When reached for comment, Mitchell said Thursday, “These are abject lies and we will disprove every one of them in court. Cooprider is guilty as sin and will be held to account for what he did, both in this civil suit and in the upcoming criminal proceedings.” He did not immediately respond to questions about a possible criminal case.
In his countersuit, Cooprider says he had a brief sexual relationship with Davis, a 37-year-old who was going through a divorce, and that her behavior escalated to harassment when he expressed that he didn’t want the relationship to continue. After that, Cooprider claims Davis faked multiple pregnancies and miscarriages, and that after she actually became pregnant, she failed to treat medical conditions which themselves could have triggered a miscarriage.
Cooprider alleges that Davis concocted her suit after the Corpus Christi Police Department declined to recommend charges based on her allegations against him.
He further alleges that Davis’ lawsuit was filed early on August 11 “so it could be immediately and widely disseminated to national and Texas media outlets that morning” prior to a Texas Senate committee hearing on legislation that would supercharge the state’s existing “bounty hunter” abortion ban, inviting citizens to sue manufacturers and providers of abortion pills and win $100,000 bounties. Davis’ suit was cited in the hearing by Jana Pinson, executive director of Pregnancy Center of the Coastal Bend, a small crisis pregnancy center chain with locations in and around Corpus Christi.
Cooprider alleges that Davis concocted her suit after the Corpus Christi Police Department declined to recommend charges based on her allegations against him.
“Just this morning, a lawsuit was filed for wrongful death where a military guy got a next-door neighbor pregnant, tried to force an abortion,” Pinson said during the August 11 hearing. “He ordered in his own name from Aid Access, and then when she wouldn’t take them, he … put 10 pills in her chocolate and she doubled over in pain about 30 minutes later. Then he left her to bleed out while she had to get help to get to the ER.”
“This is another avenue of men being able to force abuse on women,” Pinson continued. She mentioned the case again in a hearing on August 22, this time before a House committee.
Davis’ suit also named online abortion provider Aid Access and its founder, Rebecca Gomperts, as defendants. In addition to alleging that they violated wrongful death laws in Texas, the complaint accused them of violating the Comstock Act, a dormant 1873 law that Mitchell and other anti-abortion leaders argue outlaws the mailing of abortion pills. In 2025, the anti-abortion movement has made it a major priority to attack “shield” laws, which protect abortion providers like Aid Access who prescribe abortion pills via telehealth to patients in states where abortion is illegal.
Mark Lee Dickson, a prominent anti-abortion activist who was first to announce Davis’ case on social media, also mentioned the case in the August 22 hearing. In his initial social media posts about Davis’ lawsuit, Dickson connected it directly to anti-abortion legislation: “I hope these stories drive us to see more protections pass.” At the time, Dickson said he first heard Davis’ story from a CPC director in Corpus Christi. If Pinson was the person who told Dickson about the story, it’s unclear how she came in contact with Davis in the first place. According to Dickson, he put Davis in touch with “my attorney”—meaning Mitchell, who has recently filed a spate of wrongful death suits related to the use of abortion pills, usually on behalf of men upset about their partners’ abortions.
Versions of the abortion pill bounty bill have passed in both chambers of the Texas legislature in recent days. It appears poised to become law.
In his suit, Cooprider claims he didn’t coerce Davis, and that she was the one threatening him. He said Davis asked him to order abortion pills for her in February 2025, which he alleges that she never took, and that she began harassing him after he expressed that he didn’t want her to join him at his next military post in North Carolina. One night in early March, he claims, Davis stood outside his house and implied she’d accuse him of sexual assault if he didn’t speak to her. He called 911 for police to do a wellness check and told operators that she’d called him 40 times that day, according to a transcript provided in the counterclaim. He told the operators he took video of her outside his home and added: “And she’s also threatening… she’s saying that I coerced her into taking the abortion pills against her will, and that’s illegal in Texas.”
Later on the call, he said Davis told him that she was miscarrying and was sitting “in a pile of her blood in the bathtub.” Cooprider’s filing then notes that “Law enforcement checked on [her] and she was not sitting in blood. She said that she was fine.”
However, she was actually pregnant at this time, per an ultrasound on March 21, where a physician said that she had conceived about four weeks earlier. Cooprider claims that Davis invited him over on April 5, at which point she tried to frame him for a coerced abortion by alleging that he slipped abortion pills into her hot chocolate. She claimed she was bleeding profusely, and got a neighbor to drive her to the hospital, where she told staff that Cooprider “drugged” her.
Officers from Corpus Christi Police Department came to the emergency department and opened an investigation. CCPD told the New York Times in August that it shared results with Nueces County District Attorney’s Office, but that, “after careful review, both agencies concluded that the elements of a crime could not be established, and the investigation was subsequently closed as unfounded.”
According to Cooprider’s admittedly melodramatic suit, Davis’ “lethal lies in the malicious allegations now embedded in her made-up complaint read like the screenplay written for Glenn Close in the movie “Fatal Attraction.” Other salacious allegations featured in the complaint include that Davis failed to properly treat a sexually transmitted infection and typhoid fever, either of which could have led to natural miscarriage. Cooprider also alleges that Davis failed to take progesterone prescribed in late March due to a low embryonic heart rate, which his complaint presents as evidence that she did not want to continue the pregnancy. (However, while progesterone is commonly prescribed in an attempt to prevent first trimester miscarriage, evidence doesn’t support the practice except in people with a history of three or more miscarriages.) He also claims she was a heavy drinker and that she continued to drink when her children were in her home despite being ordered not to by family court.
Cooprider’s lead attorney is Mikal Watts, a puzzling figure who frequently donates to Democratic politicians, per Federal Election Commission records, but is also listed as a Federalist Society contributor. Watts faced a federal trial in 2016 on 96 counts of wire fraud, mail fraud, and identity theft after he was accused of inventing 40,000 victims of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in order to file a class action suit that would have earned him an estimated $40 million. Watts fired his attorney on the eve of trial and chose to represent himself. A jury acquitted him.
Cooprider is seeking $100 million in damages, but pledges in his counterclaim to donate any proceeds to the Wounded Warrior Project. Watts and two other attorneys said they are working on the case pro bono.
This article was republished from Autonomy News, a worker-owned publication covering reproductive rights and justice. Sign up for a free or paid subscription, and follow them on Instagram, TikTok, and Bluesky.