Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit in district court this week, which was announced Friday, over an out-of-state telemedicine doctor prescribing abortion medications to a Texas woman whose complications forced her to seek treatment at a hospital, according to the court filing.
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via the AP:
Texas has sued a New York doctor for prescribing abortion pills to a woman near Dallas, launching one of the first challenges in the U.S. to shield laws that Democrat-controlled states passed to protect physicians after Roe v. Wade was overturned.
One reason AG Paxton might have moved to petition the court on this case–more abortions are happening via pills in the wake of the US Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling scrapping Dobbs/Roe:
Such prescriptions, made online and over the phone, are a key reason that the number of abortions has increased across the U.S. even since state bans started taking effect. Most abortions in the U.S. involve pills rather than procedures.
But there was also the specific danger the 20-year-old woman was in, according to the filing:
Paxton said that the 20-year-old woman who received the pills ended up in a hospital with complications. It was only after that, the state said in its filing, that the man described as “the biological father of the unborn child” learned of the pregnancy and the abortion.
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The state said the Texas woman received a combination of two drugs that are generally used in medication abortions. Mifepristone blocks the hormone progesterone and primes the uterus to respond to the contraction-causing effect of the second drug, misoprostol.
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The state AG’s office provided more details on the woman’s case, writing in a release:
Dr. Margaret Daley Carpenter, a New York doctor and founder of the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine, unlawfully provided a Collin County resident with abortion-inducing drugs that ended the life of an unborn child and resulted in serious complications for the mother, who then required medical intervention. Texas laws prohibit a physician or medical supplier from providing any abortion-inducing drugs by courier, delivery, or mail service. Additionally, no physician may treat patients or prescribe Texas residents medicine through telehealth services unless the doctor holds a valid Texas medical license.
Dr. Carpenter knowingly treated Texas residents despite not being a licensed Texas physician and not being authorized to practice telemedicine in Texas. Attorney General Paxton requested the court enjoin Dr. Carpenter from violating Texas law and impose civil penalties of no less than $100,000 for each violation of the law.
Paxton said in a statement:
“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.”
You can find the complete filing here.
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