Texas AG Ken Paxton sues New York doctor for allegedly prescribing abortion pills to woman in Lone Star State

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 mailing pills from New York to a 20-year-old woman in Collin County, Texas, where the woman allegedly took the medication when she was nine weeks pregnant, according to the lawsuit. 

When she began experiencing severe bleeding, she asked the baby’s father, who had been unaware she was pregnant, to take her to the hospital.

The filing does not state if the woman successfully terminated her pregnancy or if she experienced any long-term medical complications from taking mifepristone and misoprostol.

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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 on the matter.

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 has been viewed as implicit permission for doctors to mail abortion pills into states with restrictions.

Texas has promised to pursue cases like this regardless of the shield laws, though it is unclear what the courts may decide on this issue, which involves extraterritoriality, interstate commerce and other legal questions. New York’s 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 protecting Texas’ law, which prohibits prescribing abortion-inducing drugs by mail and prohibits treating Texas patients or prescribing medication through telehealth services without a valid Texas medical license.

Texas’ abortion laws prohibit prosecuting a woman for getting an abortion, but do allow for physicians or others who assist a woman in receiving the procedure to be prosecuted.

The lawsuit says Carpenter, the founder of the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine, knowingly treated Texas residents despite not being a licensed Texas physician and not being authorized to practice telemedicine in the state. Paxton urged a Collin County court to prohibit Carpenter from violating Texas law and impose civil penalties of at least $100,000 for each violation.

“In this case, an out-of-state doctor violated the law and caused serious harm to this patient,” Paxton said in a statement. “This doctor prescribed abortion-inducing drugs — unauthorized, over telemedicine — causing her patient to end up in the hospital with serious complications. In Texas, we treasure the health and lives of mothers and babies, and this is why out-of-state doctors may not illegally and dangerously prescribe abortion-inducing drugs to Texas residents.”

Carpenter also works with AidAccess, an international abortion medication provider, and helped found Hey Jane, a telehealth abortion provider.