Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued a New York-based abortion doctor for violating Texas law by shipping abortion drugs to the state.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, however, is pushing back, saying a recently passed “shield law” protecting abortion providers from prosecution by other states is setting the stage for what some are calling an abortion “civil war”.
Paxton issued a statement saying that the out-of-state doctor “caused great harm” to the Texas woman and explained that he was filing the suit because, “In Texas, we value health and the lives of mothers and children, and that’s why out-of-state doctors will not give Texas citizens illegal and dangerous drugs.”
The lawsuit, filed in the Circuit Court of the District of Collin County, alleges that New York abortionist Dr. Margaret Carpenter broke Texas law and endangered a 20-year-old Texas woman by smuggling drugs into the country without first testing her. of a woman to determine the age of her child’s pregnancy.
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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks at a news conference in Dallas on June 22, 2017. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez, File)
Chemical abortions, which now account for more than 60% of all abortions in the US, are known to carry the risk of serious complications and infection in some cases. In addition to this, the Biden administration also rolled back restrictions on chemical abortions, permanently allowing the drugs to be administered via telemedicine, mail order and available at retail pharmacies such as CVS and Walgreens.
Some states, however, including Texas, continue to restrict chemical abortions from being distributed by mail or without a doctor’s consultation.
A 20-year-old Texas woman who received abortion pills from Carpenter ended up being admitted to a local hospital for bleeding or heavy bleeding from the drugs, according to Paxton’s lawsuit.
“Carpenter provided abortifacient drugs to a pregnant Collin County woman, which caused an adverse event or complication of an abortion and resulted in an abortion,” the lawsuit states. “Mbazi’s knowing and continued violation of Texas law puts Texas women and unborn children at risk.”
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Bottles of the abortion pills mifepristone, left, and misoprostol, right, at a clinic in Des Moines, Iowa, September 22, 2010. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
The lawsuit calls for civil penalties and a permanent ban on Carpenter from shipping large quantities of abortion drugs to Texas women.
However, New York state has a so-called “shield” law that expressly protects abortion providers from prosecution for providing abortion pills to patients in states where it is illegal. This is the first legal challenge to be launched by the state against one set of abortion laws and another.
Hochul responded to the Texas lawsuit by saying, “I will do everything in my power to enforce the laws of New York State.”
“No doctor should be penalized for providing necessary care to their patients,” he said, adding, “As Texas tries to limit women’s rights, I am committed to maintaining New York’s status as a safe harbor for all those seeking abortion care, and to protecting the reproductive freedom of all New Yorkers.”
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Gov. Kathy Hochul speaks during a press conference at the Governor’s office in New York on 3rd Avenue on Nov. 14, 2024. (Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Experts believe the Texas challenge could end up bound for the Supreme Court.
Kristi Hamrick, vice president of media and policy for the pro-life group Students for Life Action, told Fox News Digital that she hopes the Texas case will make it to the Supreme Court to reexamine the national security question. with abortion pills.
Hamrick said that while the Supreme Court ruled against the abortion pill restrictions earlier this year in a case called AHM v. FDA, the court made it clear that it was not closing the door on restoring protections in another case.
“The Supreme Court did not say that everything with pills is big, it can be sold as it is [and] there are no problems with pills,” he explained. “What the Supreme Court is saying is that you need to go back and start again, you came to us with the wrong victims, they didn’t have what the court calls ‘standing. .'”
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Anti-abortion and pro-abortion activists are separated by a barrier as they protest outside the Supreme Court building, ahead of the controversial Mississippi abortion rights case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, Washington, Dis. 1, 2021. (REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst)
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“Therefore, three states have already intervened and said that we are the victims because we are paying high emergency room bills because of these pills,” he continued. “A state has a right to defend its laws. So, a state, on its face, has a right to defend itself and its laws and the laws of its citizens and their duly elected representatives. So, yes, they have standing.”
Students for Life Action recently launched its anti-abortion pill challenge in the form of a so-called “citizens’ petition.” The petition calls for the FDA to delay its plans to expand the use of abortion pills again, this time to treat miscarriages, until the agency can reevaluate how the pills contaminate the nation’s water supply.
“The Biden-Harris administration during the COVID era has essentially created a de facto right to pollute and that medical waste. [from abortion pills] it’s going into the water all over America, nobody’s looking at that,” she said. “Abortion and miscarriage are not the same thing. But if you’re going to combine that and give out some of these drugs without environmental testing, without a sense of health and safety risks, that’s reckless and dangerous and that’s an organization. “
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