Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued a New York doctor for allegedly sending abortion pills via mail to the Lone Star State.
According to The New York Times, the lawsuit was filed on Thursday in Collin County, which is north of Dallas.
Under shield laws, New York will not cooperate with attempts by states to prosecute abortion providers who provide “telemedicine” across state lines. Reportedly, these laws exist in eight states and have allowed pro-abortion doctors to send more than 10,000 abortion pills per month to women in states with pro-life laws on the books.
Reportedly, a New York doctor sent abortion medication over state lines to a Texas woman who had an at-home abortion (via NYT):
In the Texas suit, Mr. Paxton said that Dr. Margaret Daley Carpenter of New Paltz, N.Y., 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 is the co-founder of the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine, which helps with “interstate telemedicine” for “close the abortion accessibility gap.” She is not licensed in Texas.
In a statement issued on Friday, New York Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul said that she was “committed to maintaining New York’s status as a safe harbor for all who seek abortion care.”
"No doctor should be punished for providing necessary care to their patients. That's why in the wake of the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision to strip away reproductive rights for American women, I worked with the Legislature to pass a shield law that protects abortion providers and patients,” she explained, adding, “Make no mistake: I will do everything in my power to enforce the laws of New York State.”