Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, has filed a lawsuit against a New York doctor who allegedly prescribed abortion drugs to a woman in the Lone Star State, violating Texas law.
Paxton accused Dr. Margaret Carpenter of sending pills from New York to a 20-year-old woman in Collin County, Texas, where the woman allegedly took the drugs when she was nine weeks pregnant, the lawsuit said.
When she suffered severe bleeding, she asked the baby’s father, who did not know she was pregnant, to take her to the hospital.
The application does not state whether the woman successfully terminated her pregnancy or whether she experienced long-term medical complications from taking mifepristone and misoprostol.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit accusing a New York doctor of prescribing abortion drugs to a Texas woman in violation of laws in the Lone Star State. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)
Paxton’s lawsuit is the first attempt to test legal protections when it comes to states with conflicting abortion laws since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, ending federal protection in this regard.
Texas has enacted an abortion ban with few exceptions, while New York protects access to the procedure and has a shield law that protects providers from out-of-state investigations and prosecutions, which is seen as implicit permission for doctors to send abortion pills to the hospital. states with restrictions.
Texas has pledged to prosecute these types of cases regardless of shield laws, although it is unclear what the courts will decide on the issue, which involves extraterritoriality, interstate commerce and other legal issues. That of New York The law allows Carpenter to refuse to comply with Texas court orders.
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It is also unknown whether New York courts would side with the protections of the Texas law, which bans prescribing abortion-inducing drugs by mail and prohibits treating Texas patients or prescribing drugs through telehealth services without a valid medical certificate. license in Texas.
The woman is said to have taken mifepristone and misoprostol when she was nine weeks pregnant. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
Texas Abortion Laws prohibit prosecuting a woman for having an abortion, but do allow doctors or others who assist a woman to undergo the procedure to be prosecuted.
According to the lawsuit, Carpenter, the founder of the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine, knowingly treated Texas residents despite not being a licensed physician in Texas and not authorized to practice telemedicine in the state. Paxton urged a Collin County court to ban Carpenter from violating Texas law and impose civil penalties of at least $100,000 for each violation.
Texas law states that doctors cannot prescribe abortion medications by mail and prohibits doctors without a Texas license from providing telehealth services or prescribing medications to patients in the Lone Star State. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File)
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“In this case, an out-of-state physician broke the law and caused serious harm to this patient,” Paxton said in a statement. “This doctor prescribed abortion-inducing drugs – illicitly, via telemedicine – causing her patient ends up in hospital with serious complications. In Texas, we cherish the health and lives of mothers and babies, and this is why out-of-state physicians are not allowed to illegally and dangerously prescribe abortion-inducing drugs to Texas residents.”
Carpenter also works with AidAccess, an international abortion medicine provider, and helped found Hey Jane, a telehealth abortion provider.
