Texas has sued a New York doctor for prescribing abortion pills to a woman near Dallas, launching one of the first lawsuits in the U.S. to protect laws passed by Democratic-controlled states to protect doctors , after Roe v. Wade was overthrown.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed the lawsuit in Collin County on Thursday and it was announced Friday.
Such online and telephone prescriptions are a key reason abortions have increased in the U.S., even since state bans went into effect. Most abortions in the United States involve pills rather than procedures.
Mary Ruth Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California, Davis, School of Law, said a challenge is expected in passing protective laws that blue states began in 2023.
And it could have a chilling effect on recipes.
“Are doctors going to be more afraid to send pills to Texas, even if they may be protected by shield laws, because they don’t know whether they are protected by shield laws?” Ziegler said in an interview Friday.
The lawsuit accuses New Yorker Dr. Margaret Daley accuses Carpenter of violating Texas law by providing the drugs to a Texas patient and is seeking up to $250,000. There are no criminal charges.
Texas bans abortion at all stages of pregnancy and has been one of the most aggressive states in fighting abortion rights. It began enforcing a state law in 2021 — even before the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade repealed and opened the door to state bans – which banned almost all abortions by allowing citizens to sue anyone who performs or helps someone obtain one.
Paxton said the 20-year-old woman who received the pills ended up in the hospital with complications. Only then did the man, described as the “biological father of the unborn child,” learn of the pregnancy and abortion, the state said in its filing.
“In Texas, we value the health and lives of mothers and babies, and that is why out-of-state doctors are not allowed to prescribe illegal and dangerous abortion medications to Texas residents,” Paxton said in a statement.
The state said the Texas woman received a combination of two drugs commonly used in medication abortions. Mifepristone blocks the hormone progesterone and prepares the uterus to respond to the contraction-inducing effects of the second drug, misoprostol. Two-drug therapy can terminate pregnancies up to 10 weeks, but the drugs also have other uses and can support induce labor, manage miscarriages or treat bleeding.
A phone message left for Carpenter was not immediately returned, nor was an email sent to the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine, of which she is medical director and founder.
New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, said she would continue to defend reproductive freedom “against anti-choice attacks from outside the state.”
“While other states seek to target those who provide or receive abortion care, New York is proud to be a safe haven for abortion access,” James said in a prepared statement. “We will always protect our providers from unwarranted attempts to punish them for their work, and we will never shy away from intimidation or threats.”
It was not clear what specific action James would take.
While most Republican-controlled states began enforcing abortion bans or tighter restrictions after Roe v. Wade was overthrown, most Democratic states have passed laws aimed at protecting their residents from investigation or prosecution under other states’ abortion laws. At least eight states have gone further, offering legal protections to health care providers who prescribe abortion pills to patients in states where abortion is banned. This scenario accounts for about 10% of all abortions in the U.S., a survey by the Society of Family Planning found.
New York’s shield law contains a provision that allows a sued prescriber to recover damages from the plaintiff.
That makes the lawsuit in Texas sensitive.
Even if Paxton prevails in a Texas court, it is unclear how this could be enforced, Ziegler said. “Will he go to New York to enforce it?” she asked.
Anti-abortion advocates who have been challenging the Biden administration’s prescription rules on mifepristone in court have prepared provocative and unusual ways to further restrict access to abortion pills when Trump takes office next year. They are emboldened to challenge the pills’ operate and look for ways to restrict it under a conservative U.S. Supreme Court backed by a Republican-controlled Congress and the White House.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a group of abortion opponents and their organizations lacked legal standing to sue to have the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone revoked. But since then, the Republican attorneys general from Idaho, Kansas and Missouri have sought to tighten some of the rules surrounding the pills – including to ban telemedicine prescriptions.
Also this year, Louisiana became the first state to reclassify the drugs as “controlled dangerous substances.” They can still be prescribed, but additional steps are required to access them.
Lawmakers in at least three states – Missouri, New Hampshire and Tennessee – have introduced bills next year that would ban or restrict operate of the pills.
“I started thinking about how we could further deter companies that violate criminal law while also providing relief to the families of unborn children,” said Tennessee state Rep. Gino Bulso, who supports legislation there targeting drug treatment, used in abortions.
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AP reporters Amanda Seitz and Kimberlee Kruesi contributed to this article.
