The complaint of a man in Texas against a California doctor, to whom he was accused of having sent abortion pills to his partner, is the first test of a shield law for reproductive health before the Federal Court. (Photo by Tiago Fernandez/Getty Images)
In the first federal action in which the shield laws were questioned, a man from Texas sued a California doctor for allegedly abortion pills to his partner.
It is the latest test of the shield laws that protect doctors, the patients in states in which they are prohibited prescribe abortion medications. Texas prohibits all abortions with close exceptions to save the life of a patient, while California protects abortion to the life capability of the fetus and later saves the health or life of a patient.
Skye Perryman, CEO and President of Democracy Forward, a left -wing legal group that is involved in legal disputes Mifepriston And Emergency caretold the status newsroom, the lawsuit underlines a long -term goal of the opponents of abortion rights: to contain access to medication abortions, which, despite the decision of the U.S.’s Supreme Court, increased to fall against Wade three years ago.
“It shows that the anti-abdominal movement and allies of the administration do not stop at Dobbs,” said Perryman. “This is an escalation of your strategy.”
Jonathan Mitchell, former Attorney General in Texas, submitted the lawsuit on behalf of Jerry Rodriguez on July 20 in front of the US district court for the Southern Division of Texas, Galveston Division.
Dr. Rémy Coeytux “deliberately and knowingly sent the drugs in Texas,” says the complaint and is accused of “supporting illegal self -governing abortion” that led to the death of a fetus.
Neither Mitchell nor Coeytux would comment on the record on Wednesday.
Rodriguez was with a married woman who was twice pregnant last year and whose husband ordered abortion medication from California, according to the complaint. It became pregnant again in May, it is said in the lawsuit, and Rodriguez is afraid that her husband puts her under pressure to take abortion pills.
Rodriguez is looking for more than 75,000 US dollars compensation and an injunction to ban the doctor the prescription of abortion medication to Texans.
Several laws are cited in the complaint, including abortion laws in Texas, an illegal death claims and A Law of the 19th century The argumented abortion rights could be used to restrict the post of abortion pills.
“This is a typical approach that we see from the anti-abbreviation movement and especially Jonathan Mitchell, which should throw all spaghetti on the wall and see what sticks is,” said Perryman.
Mitchell is often connected to the creation of the six -week abortion ban in the head point in the point of the head in September 2021. He once represented a man from Galveston who sued his ex-wife’s girlfriend and accused her of helping her with obtaining abortion pills. He dropped the lawsuit in October. The Texas Tribune reported.
The laws in California in which the doctor live offer providers and patients broad protection. Governor Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta, both Democrats, have sworn To defend California’s abortion access.
The State Shield lawEffective since January 2024, it forbids the officials to create a person or to prove a crime in relation to the provision of law enforcement officers outside the state.
However, the protection of California for abortion providers has not been tested. The New York shield law was a goal for prosecutors in countries who prohibit abortion.
In December, the Attorney General of Texas, Ken Paxton, a Civil lawsuit Against a New York abortion provider who supposedly prescribed pills by a woman from Collin County. In January a district prosecutor submitted in Louisiana Criminal charges against the same doctor because he supposedly sent abortion pills to a teenager.
New York civil servants promised to protect the doctor. A district writer in New York rejected another application from Paxton to make a judgment this month in the case.
“Our answer to your unfounded claim is clear: by no means in hell” opinion. “New York is not bullied. And I will never return from this fight.”
Eight states, including California and New York, expressly enable providers to prescribe it Abortion medication to patients in states in which an abortion is prohibited.
Rodriguez ‘lawsuit is the first to question a shield law before a federal court. Dr. Angel Foster, co-founder of the Massachusetts Medication Abortion Access Project, said that the providers of telemedicine abdominal providers who treated patients in countries with prohibited, “always presented the work we perform would give legal challenges.”
But Foster said her team remains undeterred. “You can’t bring this genius back to the bottle,” she said. “Medicines abortion pills are here to stay, regardless of what happens to these pills and how they are regulated in the United States.”
Telehack abbreviations make 1 out of 4 of all pregnancy terminations provided in the US report published last month. Almost 50% of all telegesundity spots provided in 2024 were supervised by doctors or other qualified members of the health professions who lived in Schild states, as the report stated.
Apart from the fact that Rodriguez ‘argument did not challenge the shield laws, she partially tends to fetal personality – the theory that fetuses and embryos should have legal rights by applying for cash damage for a broken fetus.
Rodriguez wants to make the manufacturers and dealers liable for the abortion pills.
He also accuses the doctor to violate them Comstock Act from 1873which the post of everything that was regarded as “obscene, indecent, lascivious” or morally impure, including abortifacients and abortion materials. The statute was weakened in the mid -20th century, but the congress never lifted it.
Mark Lee Dickson, the activist of Mitchell and anti-abortation Texas and New Mexico With proposed anti-abdominal regulations based on the law.
In 2022, the US Ministry of Justice of the legal advisor under the former democratic President Joe Biden issued a memorandum Opinion Nevertheless, the US mail service can send abortion medication because the senders do not know that they can be used illegally. Mifepriston and misoprostol are also used Treat miscarriageAnd Misoprostol is used for various reproductive diseases such as postpartum bleeding.
Republican President Donald Trump’s government did not say publicly whether Comstock can be enforced. In a January letterAmericans who united for life and other anti-abdominal groups asked the Doj officials to lift the memo.
In view of the control of the GOP on the Capitol Hill, every attempt would be to lift Comstock. However, the Democratic Senator of Minnesota, Tina Smith, again led a law to consider parts of the law in March that could contain access to the abortion of medication. The legislation has not been drawn beyond the transfer of the committee.
“These extreme republicans and dust -covered laws from 1873 should not instruct a woman’s right to make her own health decisions,” Senator John Hickenlooper, a democrat in Colorado, who sponsors Smith’s measure with Smith’s measurement. said during a call with workers of the reproductive healthcare system At the beginning of this month.
Missouri’s Republican Senator, Josh Hawley, was one of the volume opponents of abortion pills. Hawley presented A measure In May, the federal health officials have to resume older regulations for Mifepriston, which effectively prevents the providers from mixing abortion drugs to patients.
“I am establishing the restoration of the law on the Dangerous abdominal law law opinion.
The paper he expelled was not checked and published by an anti-abbreviation memorial factory, States newsroom reported. But the US health and human services secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., despite decades of review by Mifepristone Proof indicate the security of the drug.
