Texas AG sues out-of-state doctor over mail-order abortion pills

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) has sued a New York-based doctor for allegedly prescribing abortion pills to a Texas woman in violation of state law, setting up the first major legal challenge to the abortion-protecting shield laws enacted by some blue states after Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022.

Paxton on Friday announced he had filed a complaint in suburban Dallas’ Collin County that accuses Margaret Daley Carpenter of violating Texas’ law banning the mailing or online prescribing of abortion pills to Texas residents. Carpenter, a doctor in New Paltz, New York, with the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine, is also accused of practicing medicine in Texas without being licensed in that state, according to the complaint.

“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,” Paxton said in a statement Friday.

Carpenter could not immediately be reached for comment Friday, but New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) quickly hit back against Paxton’s efforts.

“We will always protect our providers from unjust attempts to punish them for doing their job and we will never cower in the face of intimidation or threats,” James said in part in a statement. “I will continue to defend reproductive freedom and justice for New Yorkers, including from out-of-state anti-choice attacks.”

New York in 2023 enacted a shield law protecting medical professionals who mail abortion pills to states that ban or restrict the drugs. Medication abortion now accounts for the vast majority of abortions in the United States. Research has shown that the two drugs commonly used for the procedure, mifepristone and misoprostol, are safe and effective.

Paxton’s complaint signals the start of a complicated interstate battle between Texas and New York’s conflicting abortion laws, where shield laws in Democratic-led states like New York could undermine mail-order abortion pill bans in conservative states like Texas.