HOUSTON, Dec. 14: Texas’ Republican attorney general has filed a lawsuit against a New York doctor who mailed abortion pills to a woman in the southern state.
Texas has some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country, and this case pits state laws regulating abortion against each other.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a civil lawsuit Thursday against Margaret Carpenter, founder of the New York-based Telemedicine Abortion Coalition.
The attorney general’s office said Carpenter provided a 20-year-old Texas woman with “abortion-inducing drugs that ended the life of the fetus and caused severe complications for the mother.”
“Texas law prohibits physicians and health care providers from providing abortion-inducing drugs by courier, delivery, or postal service.”
Additionally, “unless a physician has a valid Texas medical license, they cannot treat patients or prescribe medications for Texas residents through telehealth services.”
Mr. Carpenter does not have a Texas medical license.
The attorney general is seeking an injunction restraining Carpenter from illegally practicing medicine in Texas or prescribing abortion pills to Texas residents.
He is also seeking a $100,000 fine for each violation.
“Texas values the health and lives of mothers and babies, which is why out-of-state doctors should not prescribe illegal and dangerous abortion-inducing drugs to Texans,” Paxton said.
Democratic-controlled New York has passed a so-called shield law that legally protects New York doctors who send abortion pills to women in states where abortions are illegal.
New York Attorney General Letitia James responded to the lawsuit, saying, “Abortion is and will continue to be legal and protected in New York State.”
“We will always protect providers from unwarranted attempts to punish them for doing their jobs, and we will never flinch from threats or intimidation,” James said in a statement.
“I will continue to defend reproductive freedom and justice for New Yorkers, including against anti-choice attacks from outside the state.”
Since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down abortion rights nationwide in 2022, 18 Democratic-controlled states have enacted shield laws, according to the Reproductive Rights Center.
In June, the Supreme Court rejected a bid by anti-abortion groups to restrict mifepristone, a pill widely used to terminate pregnancies in the United States.
The Texas case raises thorny legal questions for courts about so-called extraterritoriality, or the application of one state’s laws to another. – TVS
