Texas Attorney General sues New York doctor for mailing abortion pills

The Texas attorney general opened a new front in the contentious battle over access to abortion this week by suing a New York doctor for sending abortion pills into Texas. It appeared to be among the first attempts to stop the mailing of such medication into states that ban abortion.

The lawsuit from Attorney General Ken Paxton — filed Thursday in state court in Collin County, north of Dallas — pits the laws of Texas, which has a near-total ban on abortion, against those of New York, where lawmakers have taken steps to shield doctors from out-of-state prosecution.

Under shield laws, states such as New York will refuse to cooperate with attempts by other states to prosecute or sue abortion providers who prescribe and send pills across state lines. Such laws exist in eight states and have allowed doctors there to send more than 10,000 abortion pills per month to women in states with bans.

But legal experts say they expect Texas to try to pursue its case even if it is rebuffed by New York’s law. Such an effort could wind up in federal court, potentially imperiling the ability of women in other states with bans to receive abortion pills by mail, and becoming a major test of whether states can enforce contradictory laws across state lines.

In a statement Friday, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said that she was “committed to maintaining New York’s status as a safe harbor for all who seek abortion care.”

“Make no mistake,” she added. “I will do everything in my power to enforce the laws of New York state.”

The use of abortion medications has grown since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. One study has found that medication is now used in nearly two-thirds of all abortions.

Already, abortion providers have become concerned that a 151-year-old federal antivice law known as the Comstock Act could be revived and enforced by the incoming Trump administration.

In 2022, the Justice Department concluded that abortion drugs could be sent by mail if the sender did not intend for the recipient to use them unlawfully. Abortion opponents have been pushing for the incoming administration to rescind that interpretation and say that the act bans all mailing of abortion pills.

In the Texas suit, Paxton said that Dr. Margaret Daley Carpenter of New Paltz, New York, provided two medications to a 20-year-old woman in Texas that “resulted in a medical abortion” over the summer. The two medications, mifepristone and misoprostol, are widely used together to end pregnancies up to 12 weeks.

In July, the woman asked the “biological father of her unborn child” to take her to the emergency room because of “severe bleeding,” and it was there that he first learned that she was nine weeks pregnant, according to the lawsuit.

The man “suspected that the biological mother had in fact done something to contribute to the miscarriage,” the suit said, and he went back to their home in Collin County, where he “discovered the two above-referenced medications from Carpenter.”

Carpenter specializes in reproductive health and is a co-founder of the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine, an organization that assists doctors in states where abortion is legal with interstate telemedicine in order to “close the abortion accessibility gap,” according to the group’s website.

She is not licensed to practice medicine in Texas, according to the suit. A colleague of Carpenter’s said Friday that Carpenter would not be commenting on the case.

But the colleague, Dr. Linda Prine, who has been open about prescribing abortion pills under New York’s shield law, said: “Maggie has been providing legally protected abortion care, protected by the state of New York, to people who are greatly in need. Texas has no jurisdiction over us in New York state. Abortion is a human right.”

Paxton said he was seeking to have the court stop Carpenter from continuing to provide abortion medications to patients in Texas, and to apply Texas’ ban on medication abortions to her. The ban carries a penalty of at least $100,000 for each violation.

It was not clear how Paxton would seek to enforce the state law against a New York doctor. His office did not respond to a request to discuss the suit.

David S. Cohen, a law professor at Drexel University who has helped draft and lobby for shield laws, including New York’s, said this was exactly what the shield laws were meant to cover.

“Texas has no jurisdiction over Maggie Carpenter,” Cohen said. “She is not physically present there. The courts cannot order her to do anything, and they cannot get the assistance of the New York courts to order her to do anything because of the shield law.”

It is not the first time that Paxton has tried to stretch Texas’ ban beyond state borders. He has fought in court this year to reverse a rule by the Biden administration that prevents investigators from inspecting the medical records of women who travel out of state for abortions. It was not clear if Paxton had been seeking such records.

Katie Daniel, director of legal affairs for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, applauded Paxton for filing the lawsuit and “leading the charge to hold out-of-state abortion businesses accountable for preying on Texas’ unborn children and their mothers.”

“We hope his example will embolden other pro-life leaders and begin the undoing of the mail-order abortion drug racket,” she said in a statement Friday.