Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit on Thursday against a New York doctor for allegedly providing abortion drugs to a Texas resident.
The state of Texas filed the lawsuit at the District Court at Collin County, claiming that the defendant’s “knowing and continuing violations of Texas law places women and unborn children in Texas at risk.” The state has prayed for a temporary injunction against the defendant, enjoining her from prescribing abortion-inducing drugs to Texas residents. Texas has also prayed for civil penalties under Section 170A.005 of the Health and Safety Code, which states that “a person who violates Section 170A.002 of the code is subject to a civil penalty of not less than $100,000 for each violation.”
Texas claimed that the defendant, Dr. Margaret Daley Carpenter, prescribed two abortion-inducing drugs to a 20-year-old resident of Collin County who did not have “any life threatening physical condition aggravated by, caused by, or arising from the pregnancy that placed her at risk of death or any serious risk of substantial impairment.” The patient was taken to the hospital as the consumption of the drugs caused her to hemorrhage, after which the drugs were discovered.
Carpenter is the co-founder of the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine (ACT). The organization’s stated mandate is to “proactively advance telemedicine abortion in all 50 states” and “close the abortion accessibility gap for all patients – regardless of their zip codes.”
According to Section 170.002 (a) of the Texas Health and Safety Code, a person may not intentionally or knowingly perform an abortion on a woman who is pregnant with a viable unborn child during the third trimester of the pregnancy, except in limited circumstances. Texas state law prevents doctors who do not have a full Texas medical license from treating or prescribing Texans, even through telecommunication. Further, state law mandates that no physician or supplier can provide a patient any abortion-inducing drugs through courier, delivery, or mail service.
Texas is one of the 13 American states where abortion is illegal. States have taken different stances on abortion as a matter of right following the US Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization in 2022. The court decided in Dobbs to overturn Roe v. Wade, a previous decision that established the constitutional right to an abortion in 1973.
