The Texas attorney general has launched a lawsuit against a New York doctor providing abortion pills—proving women aren’t safe anywhere in the country.
This piece was originally published on Bonnie Fuller’s “Your Body Your Choice” Substack.
A new battlefront in the war on women is being led by right-wing extremist Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who’s coming with guns blazing after a New York doctor who prescribed and sent abortion pills to a 20-year-old Texas woman. In the first-of-its-kind lawsuit, Paxton is suing Dr. Margaret Carpenter for $100,000 in a Collin County, Texas, court for enabling an abortion in Texas … even though Carpenter practices medicine in New York, and what she’s doing—providing abortion pills to women in all 50 states—is legal in New York as a result of the state’s shield law.
We knew antiabortion forces in Republican-controlled states were never going to be satisfied in only shutting down women’s rights in their own states. Similarly, Paxton isn’t satisfied with simply terrifying Texas OB-GYNs who violate his own state’s extreme abortion ban. Violators of the Texas ban—including doctors who simply treat a serious miscarriage with a D&C that is later misconstrued as an abortion—face 99 years in prison, plus loss of their medical licenses.
In addition to being an abortion provider, Carpenter is also the co-founder of the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine (ACT). Her organization has helped numerous women in abortion ban states, including Texas, make their own decisions about whether they can continue a pregnancy.
Carpenter and her partners—Dr. Linda Prine and Julie Kay, a former ACLU lawyer who successfully argued the case that overturned Ireland’s abortion ban—founded ACT after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, triggering 20 Republican-led states to move with hyper-speed to pass dangerous abortion bans, many with no exceptions for rape, incest or the actual health of mothers. ACT organized doctors willing to provide abortion pills through telemedicine to women trapped in these states (though ACT and groups like it send pills to women in all 50 states).
ACT’s work has literally been a lifesaver for women. But saving women’s lives has not been a priority for Texas’ Republican lawmakers—even after reporting showed at least three young healthy women have died in the state while undergoing miscarriages during much-wanted pregnancies. Instead, Paxton is reaching his Texas tentacles all the way into the state of New York to try to drag Carpenter into his state court.
The move is no doubt an attempt to spook Carpenter and other physicians providing abortion pills through telemedicine to abandon their mission of helping pregnant women. Conveniently, Paxton chose to file this lawsuit after the Nov. 5 election, when it could potentially have influenced the way some voters made their presidential choice.
It also appears to be part of a bigger antiabortion strategy to challenge state-level shield laws, which specifically protect healthcare providers from being attacked for providing abortion pills to patients in other states. Other than New York, five other states have telemedicine provider shield laws: Massachusetts, Washington, Colorado, Vermont and California.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed the shield law in 2023 to protect the state’s abortion providers specifically against aggressive antiabortion AGs like Paxton, warning them: “If you’re in another state law enforcement [and] you want to prosecute, penalize, sue one of our healthcare providers who prescribed abortion medication, we’re not going to help you. We’re not going to cooperate with out-of-state investigations. We’re not going to extradite, we’re not going to issue subpoenas. You can continue hell-bent down your path on continuing this radical behavior. But we’ll be just as hell-bent on stopping you.”
“They want to strip them of their medical licenses, sue them, throw them in jail, convict them of murder,” she continued. “This is New York. We don’t respond well to threats. … They can’t stop New York, and that’s how we’re fighting back.”
Since Paxton filed his lawsuit, New York Attorney General Letitia James has also fired back: “If the attorney general of Texas were actually ‘pro-life,’ he would do anything possible to save the life of a mother faced with a dire medical emergency. Instead, he is again taking dangerous, malicious and inhumane action that would jeopardize the lives of so many. I am sickened by his disregard for the safety of Americans, but make no mistake: I will fight back and take action to protect access to this critical care.”
Hochul and James appear poised to join the fight on behalf of Carpenter. But this could just be Paxton’s opening shot—his first lawsuit against a doctor from a blue state. He could launch more. Paxton could also be aiming to take this fight all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court in an epic battle of Texas versus New York law.
But in the meantime, the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine has responded defiantly to Ken Paxton’s lawsuit in a statement they sent me:
“Ken Paxton is prioritizing his anti-abortion agenda over the health and well-being of women by attempting to shut down telemedicine abortion nationwide. By threatening access to safe and effective reproductive health care, he is putting women directly in harm’s way.
“Let us be clear: the FDA-approved medicine in the two step protocol for a medication abortion has been proven safe and effective globally for decades. It is an essential part of women’s healthcare.
“Since Roe v. Wade was overturned, we have seen attempts to further impede and erode a person’s right to make decisions about their own bodies. Shield laws are essential in safeguarding and enabling abortion care regardless of a patient’s zip code or ability to pay. They are fundamental to ensuring everyone can access reproductive health care as a human right.”
Whether it’s Paxton, President-elect Donald Trump or RFK Jr., there are plenty of Republican lawmakers just itching to end abortion access nationally. It is about control—controlling you. And Paxton taking on New York’s abortion shield law is the new war front. Pay attention.
