Texas AG sues Delaware nurse practitioner for mailing abortion pills
DALLAS – Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Tuesday that his office is suing a Delaware-based nurse practitioner who is accused of mailing abortion pills into Texas.
Paxton’s office is suing Debra Lynch, who operates an organization called Her Safe Harbor. The organization, according to its website, prescribes and mails medication abortion to all 50 states, including Texas.
The lawsuit is an escalation of Paxton’s action against Lynch. In August, the attorney general’s office sent cease and desist letters to Lynch’s organization, as well as two other entities, threatening legal action and penalties if they didn’t stop mailing pills.
At the time, Lynch talked to the Dallas Morning News over the phone and said she had no intention of letting the legal threat stop her.
“Our concerns are strictly and 100% solely focused on the well-being of the women that are being denied health care,” she said at the time. “Our concern for ourselves, it doesn’t come into play in any way, shape or form.”
After Paxton’s office announced the cease and desist last year, Lynch said her organization received a tsunami of calls about medication abortion. The pills are prescribed early in pregnancy, and are considered safe up to 10 weeks’ gestation.
The attorney general’s lawsuit against Lynch is part of a broader campaign to tamp down on abortion in Texas.
Texas’ abortion ban is among the strictest in the country, with no exceptions for rape, incest or fatal fetal anomalies. Abortions are only permitted in Texas during medical emergencies.
While clinics providing abortions have been shut down across the state, Texas officials have had a harder time stopping the flow of abortion pills.
In December, for instance, Paxton’s office sued a New York doctor for allegedly prescribing abortion pills to a Texan over a telehealth appointment.
Although a Texas judge sided with Paxton in that case, New York state officials have pointed to their own shield law and refused to enforce the ruling.