If it could have a significant impact on access to abortion in the United States, a Texas judge on Thursday ordered a New York doctor to stop prescribing and sending abortions to patients in Texas and pay more than $ 100,000 to provide a drug to a woman.
The case is widely expected to reach the Supreme Court and a basic test in the staggered battle between states prohibiting abortion and states supporting the rights of abortions. It is essentially the Texas, which has an almost comprehensive abortion ban against New York, which has a “law on telemedicine influx” aimed at protecting abortions that send medicines to patients in other states.
These shield laws have become a key strategy for aborting rights, as the Supreme Court has overturned the national right to abortion in 2022. The laws, which have been adopted in eight states so far, stipulate that officials and organizations will not cooperate with Urban lawsuits, persecutions or other legal actions submitted against health care providers prescribing and sending abortion medicines to patients in other states.
Such laws represent a withdrawal from formal transnational version practices, call prices and exchange of information. According to the laws on telemedicine abortion shields, which have been used since the summer of 2023, healthcare providers in states where abortion is legal have sent more than 10,000 abortion pills per month to patients in states with abortions or restrictions.
Texas’s lawsuit was filed in December by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton against Dr. Margaret Daley Carpenter of New Paltz, NY, which works with telemedicine abortion organizations to provide pills to patients across the country. The lawsuit claims that Dr. Carpenter, who does not have a license in Texas, provided pills to a woman in Texas.
The order signed on Thursday by Judge Bryan Gantt of the Collin County Regional Court said Dr. Carpenter “is permanently imposed by the prescription of drugs causing abortions to Texas residents”. Violation of an order may lead to a judge order by a judge, which could bring additional financial sanctions or prison sentence. The judge also ordered a fine of $ 100,000 and about $ 13,000 to lawyer fees and costs plus interest.
With the New York City Shield Act that prohibits cooperation with external legal actions, Dr. Carpenter and its lawyers did not respond to the Texas costume or appeared in court on Wednesday to hear before the judge.
The 40 -minute session in the court north of Dallas was particularly quiet and soothing about such a dispute and national importance.
Two lawyers for the Attorney General’s office asked the judge to issue a default decision to their benefit, essentially a decision against a defendant who has not appeared or provided any answer.
The Attorney General’s lawyers have argued in the judicial deposits that because Dr. Carpenter did not respond within a certain period of time, the Texas law believes that “the accused of her non -answers has admitted all the claims of the plaintiffs to establish responsibility”.
The defense table was empty. About 30 minutes at the hearing, Judge Gantt said: “I noticed that he is not here.” He asked the Attorney General’s lawyers if they had heard from Dr. Carpenter that morning.
When they said no, the judge asked the bailiff to “call the hall” and announce the name of Dr. Carpenter in the corridor outside the courtroom. Less than a minute later, the bailiff returned and said, “Your honor, I called Margaret Daley Carpenter three times without an answer.”
Texas was the first state with a ban on abortion to launch legal actions against abortions in states with shield laws. But other states with abortions are expected to follow their example.
In January, the first criminal charges were filed against a shield provider. In this case, a state -run jury in Louisiana issued a criminal indictment, also against Dr. Carpenter, accusing it of violating the ban on the almost total abortion of Louisiana by sending pills to this state.
On Thursday, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry said he had signed a warrant seeking to issue Dr. Carpenter to his state to be tried. New York Governor Kathy Hochul responded by citing the state shield law and saying: “I will not sign a publishing order coming from the Louisiana governor, not now, never.”
Texas and Louisiana cases are expected to lead to court battles with the state of New York.
New York’s refusal could lead Louisiana to ask the federal courts to order the publication, experts said. The potential result is unclear, but Mary Ziegler, Professor of Law and Abilation Expertise at the University of California, Davis, said there was a legal precedent for the issuance not required for the defendants who were not in the state where the supposed crime was committed. from this state.
In the civil case, Texas is likely to apply to a state court in New York to try to collect the financial penalty. If New York reports its Shield Act to support the Texas penalty, as expected, the case could be turned into a battle in the federal court or in the Supreme Court for whether the shield law is constitutional allowing a state to refuse cooperate with other legal actions of the state.
Dr. Carpenter was not accessible to comments on the Texas or Louisiana case. The abortion coalition for telemedicine, an organization it has established, has issued statements in response to cases. “Shield laws are essential for ensuring and establishing abortion care regardless of the postal code or ability to pay,” the coalition said. “They are fundamental to ensure that everyone can access reproductive health care as a human right.”
Texas’ treatment accuses Dr. Carpenter of providing a 20 -year -old woman with two medicines used in a standardized abortion, Mifepristone and Misoprostol. It is usually exhausted within 12 weeks in pregnancy, MIFEPristone excludes a hormone required for pregnancy development and misoprostol, taken 24 to 48 hours later, causes contraction similar to miscarriage.
According to a complaint filed by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas, the woman, who was nine weeks pregnant, asked her “biological father of her unborn child” to take her to the emergency room in July “due to bleeding or serious bleeding. ” In court on Wednesday, Ernest C. Garcia, head of the Department of Administrative Law at the Attorney General’s Office, said in the hospital, the woman’s partner “ended up finding that she was pregnant” and “began to suspect this may not be honest. That’s why. ”
When the man returned home, he found the drugs and realized that they had been taken to cause abortion, Mr Garcia said, adding that “this person had a complaint to the Office of the Attorney General of Texas”.
The case of Texas is an example of increasing standard in states with abortions: men who report authorities that their female partners had abortions. There have been other such cases in Texas and John Seago, president of Texas Right to Life, said in an interview that, in the coming weeks, many men plan to file lawsuits for illegal deaths against doctors, organizations or people For men’s women’s partners.
Emily Cochrane They contributed reports.
