Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) is suing a New York doctor for prescribing and sending abortion medication to a Texas woman via telehealth, the first test of a blue state’s abortion shield laws.
The lawsuit alleges that New York doctor Margaret Daley Carpenter violated Texas law after she prescribed abortion medication to a 20-year-old Texan who later had an “adverse event” resulting in a medical abortion.
The Collins County woman was brought to the hospital more than a month after Carpenter allegedly prescribed her abortion medication due to heavy bleeding, according to the lawsuit.
It is unclear if the woman’s abortion was successful or what health consequences she might have suffered from it.
Abortion is almost completely banned in Texas, but residents can still access abortion medication via telehealth providers located out-of-state.
New York—along with a handful of other Democratic-led states—has shield laws to protect providers from out-of-state investigations and prosecutions if they prescribe and send abortion medication to people living in states with abortion restrictions.
But the laws have only been in existence for about a year and to date have never been tested in court.
Legal experts have said the true test will be whether New York’s courts recognize it, since this lawsuit is what the law was designed to protect against.
In response to Paxton’s lawsuit, New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) pledged to protect providers from “unjust” attacks.
“Abortion is, and will continue to be, legal and protected in New York,” James said in a statement. “We will always protect our providers from unjust attempts to punish them from doing their jobs and we will never cower in the face of intimidation or threats.”
Meanwhile, leading anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America said it hoped other states will follow Texas’s lead.
“We thank Attorney General Ken Paxton for leading the charge to hold out-of-state abortion businesses accountable,” SBA Director of Legal Affairs Katie Daniel said in a statement. “We hope his example will embolden other pro-life leaders and begin the undoing of the mail-order abortion drug racket.”
Read more about the lawsuit here.
