Texas Sues New York Doctor For Prescribing Abortion Pills Via Telemedicine

Texas is suing a New York expert for prescribing mifepristone and misoprostol — nan pills utilized for medicine abortion — to a Texas resident via telemedicine, an alleged usurpation of nan state’s strict abortion law.

Attorney General Ken Paxton revenge nan suit against Dr. Margaret Daley Carpenter, laminitis of nan Abortion Coalition for Telemedecine, successful Collin County civilian tribunal connected Thursday. Carpenter doesn’t look criminal charges, but nan authorities is seeking up to a $250,000 fine. 

This is nan first clip Texas has sued an out-of-state master for providing abortion services to a Texas diligent via telemedicine. Notably, New York, wherever Carpenter is based, has a “shield law” that’s designed to protect doctors who prescribe and nonstop abortion pills to patients successful different states, including those that, for illustration Texas, personification outlawed abortion. 

“Regardless of what nan courts successful Texas do, nan existent mobility is whether nan courts successful New York admit it,” Greer Donley, a professor astatine nan University of Pittsburgh School of Law, told nan Texas Tribune. 

According to nan complaint, a 20-year-old female who became pregnant sometime successful mid-May was prescribed mifepristone and misoprostol by Carpenter astatine an undisclosed time. The woman, who is not named successful nan lawsuit, knowledgeable adverse broadside effects from nan pills and asked her partner to return her to nan infirmary because of hemorrhage aliases unspeakable bleeding connected July 16th. 

At nan hospital, nan woman’s partner was told that she “‘had been’ 9 weeks pregnant earlier losing nan child,” nan title says, which made him logic that she “had intentionally withheld accusation from him regarding her pregnancy, and he further suspected” that nan female “had successful truth done point to lend to nan miscarriage aliases abortion” of nan pregnancy. According to nan complaint, she had not antecedently told her partner she was pregnant. Upon returning to their home, nan woman’s partner recovered nan 2 medications Carpenter allegedly prescribed to nan woman. 

The title does not opportunity erstwhile nan female obtained nan medication.

Texas has 1 of nan strictest abortion laws successful nan country. The authorities has a near-total prohibition connected abortion astatine each stages of pregnancy, pinch constrictive exceptions if nan life of nan mother is astatine consequence but nary exceptions for cases of rape and incest. According to nan complaint, nan unnamed 20-year-old female “did not personification immoderate life-threatening beingness accusation aggravated by, caused by, aliases arising from nan gestation that placed her astatine consequence of decease aliases immoderate superior consequence of important impairment.”